By: Steve Derderian
sderderian@massgolf.org
OSTERVILLE, Massachusetts (June 9, 2026) – Cape Cod does not hand out many days better suited for championship golf. Then again, after 84 years away from Oyster Harbors Club, maybe the Massachusetts Open was due for this kind of welcome.
Oyster Harbors Club greeted its return with flags stretched tall in the Cape Cod wind, golden light spilling across restored Ross greens, a windmill near the entry gate and reminders of the championship’s past at nearly every turn. Past champions had their names on signs and their own reserved parking spots, while British Jeep-style carts and other stylish vehicles rolled through the neighborhood around a Gil Hanse-sharpened layout with a $75,000 purse on the line.
By the time Chris Fosdick (Middlefield, CT) made his move, Oyster Harbors had already shown it would give up a score to the right kind of round, but not many. Fosdick, a Virginia graduate and 25-year-old professional still trying to climb the next rung of competitive golf, arrived less than 24 hours after a near miss at U.S. Open Final Qualifying in New York. By Tuesday afternoon, he had a bogey-free, 6-under-par 66, good for a two-stroke lead in the 116th Massachusetts Open and a score one shy of Ken Venturi’s Oyster Harbors course record, set in 1965, one year after Venturi won the U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club.
“That’s pretty cool,” said Fosdick, a two-time Connecticut Amateur champion. “The course record was not even a thought in my mind. I played pretty solid golf today. As every golfer probably thinks, there are shots that I left out there, but I’m very happy with how I played.”
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There was plenty working against him, starting with the wind. Oyster Harbors is not especially long by modern championship standards. But only 18 out of 144 players shot even-par 72 or better, with defenses coming in the form of firm greens rolling at about 12.5 on the Stimpmeter; deep, constantly lurking bunkers; shifting gusts; and Donald Ross green complexes that sent shots tumbling off putting surfaces and, in at least one case, into a bunker.
Fosdick did not drive it quite the way he wanted, and he said missing the fairways on the par-5s cost him a chance to go even lower. But his wedge game repeatedly kept him moving forward, including at the par-4 9th, where he took a beaver-tail divot from the fairway and placed his approach inside 4 feet of a tight pin to move to 6-under. Finishing on the par-3 10th, Fosdick came up just short of the green, putted to about 6 feet and knocked it home to keep the card clean.
“I think only once or twice I had a shot from long or above the hole where I really had to play defense,” Fosdick said. “I was able to keep myself below the hole and kind of play offense.”
Fosdick, along with several others, pulled into Massachusetts late Monday after 36 holes as part of the “golf’s longest day” at Golf Club of Purchase & Century Country Club. Though he fell short of advancing to Shinnecock Hills, the day did produce one benefit. His coach, who was on-site working with several players, helped him clean up a putting stroke that had felt shaky earlier in the day. By Tuesday, it was good enough to carry him to the top of the Mass Open leaderboard.
“If I had played like this today, I would have been playing at Shinnecock later this month,” Fosdick said.
Brookline native James Imai (KOHR Golf), the 2024 runner-up at Willowbend, also stayed within reach with a 3-under 69 in the morning. The three-time Mass Junior Amateur champion made just one bogey, after getting short-sided in a greenside bunker on No. 9, but otherwise kept himself in position on a course that punished misses to the wrong side.
Imai made eagle on the par-5 16th and turned at 3-under, but as the wind picked up, so did the need for discipline.
“With the wind, there are just some places you can’t be, even with 100 yards in,” said Imai, a Northwestern graduate. “Without having [tour] status, this is probably the best event I’m going to play, just in terms of the golf course, the test and the overall atmosphere. We’re not firing at every pin from 200 yards, having to shoot 19-under to win. I certainly love the test set up this week, having to play away from pins and playing really disciplined golf.”
Low amateur on the day and solo second belonged to Duxbury’s Reese Jensen (Duxbury Yacht Club), who shot a 4-under 68. Despite spending most of the spring season fighting for starts, the Harvard freshman has been on a roll this summer. He survived a nine-for-one playoff at U.S. Amateur local qualifying last week at Longmeadow CC. On the heels of 36 holes at U.S. Open Final Qualifying on Monday, he said perhaps it helped.
His round included seven birdies but perhaps his best was hitting a “tee-down driver” to the base of the 9th fairway. After stepping off a few times due to the wind, he finally hit a knock-down pitching wedge to about seven feet and made birdie for the day’s lone 68.
“I just got out there, made a couple early birdies, and then rode the momentum from there,” said Jensen, who was part of Team Massachusetts within the United States National Development Program. “I had to ride the bench for a little while, so I think that probably kicked me in the butt a little bit [and] had to figure things out. I know I can shoot good scores, so I’ve just had to stop overthinking it for the most part.”
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