Ben Balter & Ben Knott Birdie Final Hole To Capture Mass Four-Ball Championship Title
By Steve Derderian sderderian@massgolf.org
MARLBOROUGH/HARVARD, Massachusetts (May 14, 2025) – Heading into Wednesday’s final round of the 44th Massachusetts Four-Ball Championship, the air was thick with questions and thoughts on the outcome.
Would the winner emerge from Marlborough or Shaker Hills? Who would go low when it counted? How costly was that missed putt? Would the leaderboard hold steady? Would a dark horse crash the party?
After a long day of waiting and watching the leaderboard, the winners finally emerged late in the afternoon, and even their clinching moment came with a slight delay. Tied going into the last hole at Marlborough Country Club’s uphill par-4 9th, Ben Balter striped a 9-iron into the elevated green and waited about 30 seconds to drive up by the green and see it had settled about a foot from the pin. A short while later, his tap-in birdie sealed it: a 10-under-par total of 133 (67-66) and a one-shot victory with his Weston Golf Club playing partner Ben Knott.
“On 9, I probably hit the two best back-to-back shots I’ve ever hit,” a bold statement from Balter, who played collegiately at Wake Forest, plus some pro golf. “I think I hit [the drive] about 245 yards. After that, I just felt really confident over the 9-iron. When I hit it, I knew it was good, but like Ben said, there were seven or eight people behind the green and nobody reacted, so I thought maybe it went long. Walking up, I saw two balls on the green and just tried to stay calm and make sure it was mine. It was one of the best clutch shots I’ve ever hit. It was really fun.”
Reasonable people can argue whether one can manifest a win or if it’s all about skill and execution, but it’s fair to say Balter entered Wednesday with the conviction to win. Before driving to the course, he sent Knott a video of highlights from Tiger Woods’ 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. On his way in, he was listening to “The 2019 Masters: A Sunday Unlike Any Other.”
“Right when I pulled into the parking lot, Tiger was tapping in on 18, and he was talking about how cool it was to have his family there,” Balter recalled. Several hours later, he paced the 9th green waiting for his own winning tap-in moment. “Obviously, it’s a very different situation, but it was a putt to win, and it was a putt to win by one. And I just kind of collected myself and told myself, it’s not over. People miss 18-inch puts all the time, so I just had to walk back in, go through my routine, and make sure I put a good stroke on it.”
While Balter has always maintained a motto of playing with intention, he has particularly relished his renewed amateur status in recent years. He has qualified for the last two U.S. Mid-Amateurs and is enjoying the competition without fear of earning a paycheck. Balter got the team off to a solid start Tuesday with birdies on three of the first five holes and by helping his side go bogey-free through all 36, it was the difference to the victory.
Knott, who said he is well comfortable letting Balter lead much of the way, added two birdies himself in the final round, giving the squad the necessary boost to win the title. Knott’s background is a bit different, as he played football and baseball growing up and was the ski team’s captain at Nobles & Greenough in Dedham. He’s much more involved in golf now, even previously qualifying for a regional tournament with the goal of earning a spot in the RE/MAX World Long Drive Championships.
Both men clearly have goals for themselves, but for now, they relish the opportunity to play and win together.
“There’s been a lot of great champions out here, and to have our name on the wall with them is fantastic,” Knott said after the pair’s first Mass Golf victory after three tries in this event together. “It’s a great event. I love playing with Ben. The difference this year was that we just had the perfect partner ball. At the right times, one of us was in a bit of trouble, and then the other one was right there to clean up a par and save the day. As far as I’m concerned, it was the best we could have asked for.”
For the majority of the day, the lead belonged to Christian Jensen (Sagamore Spring Golf Club) and Mike Roulic (Granite Links Golf Club), who made an early charge Wednesday morning, posting a strong 6-under 65; later returning to Marlborough Country Club to see how the afternoon would unfold. While they came up short, they turned heads with four birdies in the first five holes and never lost momentum. After a bogey on the par-3 17th, Roulic saved par with a clutch up-and-down on the 18th to keep their score intact. Earlier, on the par-5 8th, Jensen nearly holed out from the greenside bunker for eagle, as his shot checked up just inches from the hole.
Jensen, who grew up in East Lyme, Connecticut, and has now qualified for the U.S. Mid-Amateur in consecutive years despite never playing college golf, continues to shine on the amateur circuit. Roulic, a UMass Amherst grad from Billerica who now works in Boston, has teamed with Jensen since 2022, with finishes of T21 (66-68) and T48 68-70 in previous years.
In the afternoon, the race was on to match 9-under, and Gloucester natives Mark Turner and Colby Mitchell, of Bass Rocks Golf Club, were the first to equalize. They hit the mark with a birdie on the reachable par-5 13th but made par the rest of the way to settle for T2. Turner nearly sank a 20-plus-foot putt on the 18th but just burned the edge.
In the morning wave at Shaker Hills, Brandon Gillis & Mike Walker, of Nabnasset Lake Country Club, sprang into a share of the lead by shooting 6-under 66. Despite a pair of wayward shots on the long dogleg 18th, Walker was able to get up-and-down from the back bunker to save par and keep the pair at 7-under.
Despite a pair of bogeys on their opening nine, Jack Hester and Sean Magarian, of Pleasant Valley Country Club, had several chances to reach the top of the leaderboard, but couldn’t keep up their momentum after Hester chipped in to finish out Round 1. Magarian had a 12-foot birdie putt on the closing 9th, but it just slid past the front of the cup.
Watch: Final Round Video Highlights
Notes & Notables
The low 40 and ties from the results are exempt into the 2026 Mass Four-Ball Championship. The cutline for exemption this year was 2-under 141.
The winning score of 10-under-par 133 is the highest two-day total posted by a winning pair since Matt Parziale & Herbie Aikens won the title by shooting a 134 (-9) at Framingham Country Club & Hopkinton Country Club in 2016.
Day 1 leaders, Boston firefighters Andrew Donovan (Indian Pond Country Club) & Peter Eleey (South Shore Country Club) couldn’t match their efforts from the day prior. Despite hovering around even-par for most of the day at Shaker Hills, the pair took a costly 10 on the 15th hole to finish 1-under 142 for the tournament.
Several Massachusetts players are competing in the U.S. Four-Ball Championship, which begins Saturday at Plainfield Country Club & Echo Lake Country Club in New Jersey. The list includes: former University of Hartford teammates Danny Frodigh (Westwood) & Jared Winiarz (Norton); former Harvard teammates Oliver Cordeiro & Boston’s Diego Saavedra; Pembroke’s Kevin Gately (w/Sam Jenkins); Osterville’s Ricky Stimets (w/Joel Alexander); Marblehead’s Hunter Stone (w/James Smith); Boston’s Jake Shuman (w/Ben Cooley); Wayland’s Liam Gill (w/ Seattle teammate Ben Ragland); and Hopkinton’s Gregg Hedstrom (w/Brian Hedstrom).
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