By Steve Derderian
sderderian@massgolf.org
KINGSTON/PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts (April 28, 2026) – The Massachusetts Four-Ball Championship arrives before most are fully primed for competition. Even with two balls in play per side, the blustery conditions and just one opportunity to play each course do not offer much by way of assistance.
Instead, it drops 176 teams (352 players) across two nearby courses and asks: Who’s ready now?
The answer Tuesday depended quite a bit on where you played. Early returns in this event tend to favor teams that already know how to manage a course together, but in this case, four of the top five squads, and 41 of 65 teams who shot under par did so at Waverly Oaks, located on the opposite side of Route 3 from The Pinehills in Plymouth.
With a hard charge just as the sun was setting, Providence commit Zac Georgantas (Foxborough Country Club) and high school standout Michael McCormack (Sacconnesset Golf Club) took the lead into the second and final round at 7-under-par 64, pulling ahead of the field after Georgantas hit a solid 4-iron off the left-back slope and made the 5-foot birdie putt on the 17th at Waverly. Despite yanking his tee shot OB left on the 18th, McCormack picked him up with a composed, uphill two-putt to save par for the side.
“I feel like we did that all day, when one of us needed it we picked each other up,” said Georgantas, who has connected with McCormack through youth baseball, hockey, and now golf via their mutual training with Team Massachusetts as part of the United States National Development Program (USNDP).
“We’re pretty psyched that we’re playing in this tournament together, and we had a good start,” added McCormack, a semifinalist in the 2025 Massachusetts Junior Amateur.
About 20 minutes north at Indian Pond, the more tree-lined of the two courses, it was two guys by the name of Church and Stone who laid the early foundation. A Tedesco Country Club pair, Church Waesche and Hunter Stone leaned into conditions that felt familiar to their North Shore roots, posting a bogey-free 6-under 66 that held the lead for most of the day.
Stone jumpstarted the round with an eagle-birdie start, including a hole-out from the front bunker on his opening hole.
“Three under through two [holes] really is kind of the dream start. It got us going in the right direction,” said Stone. “It was pretty cold out there and never really warmed up, so to get a few under the belt right off the bat definitely freed us up a little bit.”
Stone added birdies on Nos. 18 and 1, while Waesche chipped in with one on the 2nd, but the tone of the round was set by avoiding mistakes. The biggest moment may have come on the par-5 8th, where Stone scrambled from the woods and poured in a 6-foot par putt, punctuating it with a downward pump of the putter to keep the card clean. As Stone prepares for the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball (different partner), this team came together with a simple goal: get more competitive rounds in early.
“Church is a great player,” Stone said. “We’re always battling at home, so we figured, why not give it a shot and try to make Tedesco proud.”
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Herbie Aikens (Old Sandwich Golf Club) and Matt Parziale (Thorny Lea Golf Club), champions of this event in 2016 and 2017, posted a 4-under round at Indian Pond and reminded the field how dangerous experience can be. The longtime friends also had the honor of hitting the opening tee shot on Hole 1, just a half-mile from Aikens’ home.
“To get back and play with your best friend in an event that matters, it’s really fun,” said Aikens, who birdied the first hole and knocked in another from 7 feet on the 16th. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
The same goes for Parziale, who said he flew back from Arizona after competing in the burgeoning Grass League as a member of the Tampa Bay Swamp Dogs franchise, just to play this event, and will return soon after. Their chemistry was clearly on display on the closing par-5 18th. Often spotted laughing and walking side-by-side between shots, Aikens hit a solid layup approach to about 100 yards, allowing Parziale to go for the green aggressively with a fairway metal. While it found the left-front bunker, Parziale was able to get up and down for birdie and leave them in a good spot as the teams flip courses.
“I wouldn’t say we were firing on all cylinders,” Parziale said. “But there was a lot of good. We could’ve had a few more putts fall.”
Meanwhile at Waverly, a cluster of teams reached 6-under 66, including Chris Gatcomb & Shane Walsh, of George Wright Golf Course; Nick Boes & Patrick Silk, of Haverhill Golf & Country Club; Terrence Manning (Far Corner Golf Club) & AJ Bodnar (Ferncroft Country Club).
Round 2 will begin as scheduled at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, with each side flipping courses. In the event of a tie for first place through 36 holes, a sudden-death playoff will begin following the close of competition at Waverly Oaks.
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Located in Kingston on the South Shore, Indian Pond Country Club is one of the newer venues to host Mass Golf championships, having opened in 2001. Despite its relative youth, the course has quickly established itself as a championship-caliber test throughout the past decade, having played host to the Ouimet Memorial Tournament (2024), Massachusetts Junior Amateur (2021) and Massachusetts Girls’ Junior Amateur (2022). In August, it will also host the Net Four-Ball Championship, which took place at Waverly Oaks last season.
Dramatically cut into the wooded hills of Kingston, the 18-hole championship course measures almost 6,800 yards and has dense rows of trees defining many of the holes. The magnificent clubhouse includes the pro-shop, a golfer’s lounge, The Grand Ballroom accommodating up to 500 guests, and The Blackstones Room accommodating up to 150 guests as well as one of the largest pools for a golf club in New England.
