BORDENTOWN: Scotties’ Hill captures Burlington golf crown

By Justin Feil, The Packet Group
   Russell Hill has been a top player for Bordentown Regional High School since he started there.
   He’d qualified for the state tournament every year, and consistently posted the Scotties’ best scores. But the senior hadn’t won a big tournament in his scholastic career.
   Hill earned a convincing win with a 4-over 76 at the 41st annual Burlington County Open Championship on Monday at Little Mill Country Club.
   ”He hadn’t had the big win yet,” said BRHS head coach Ron Jones. “Now he does. I think that’ll take him a lot further.”
   Hill is just the second Scotties golfer to win the BC Open. Justin Van Hyning won it in 1999.
   Coaches are asked to monitor groups as they make their way through the tournament, and Jones was in the group ahead of Hill. It allowed him to keep tabs on his senior golfer.
   ”I did get to acknowledge his presence,” Jones said. “There were three holes where they kind of caught up to us because my group was playing a little slow. Each time I saw him, he gave me a thumbs up. So I knew it was going well.”
   It didn’t go well for most others. Though the weather was finally spring-like, Hill was one of only two players to break 80, and almost one-third of the field didn’t break 100, including the rest of the Scotties contingent.
   ”One of the fellas in my group from Cherokee was one of the favorites, so to speak, and he shot a 91,” Jones said. “The greens were probably almost mid-season fast. They had been cut first-thing (Monday) morning. First cuts, within the first couple of hours, the greens are really slick. Two-foot putts, they looked straight, but they were not going the way they should be going.
   ”Russell, the one thing he did have a little problem with was, he said I did hit too many shots in the woods. He had a little trouble controlling his driver. A lot of the holes have dog legs. Very few of them are straight. Unless you hit a perfectly straight ball down the middle, it can be tough.”
   Hill, though, was able to recover to finally get a big monkey off his back. He had finished second in each of the previous two years at the tournament, and lost on the first hole of a playoff last season. This time, he won by three strokes over Shawnee’s Zach Arsenault. Shawnee won the team championship.
   The key for Hill was being able to recover and get up and down after his tee shots. He did not have any three putts in his round.
   ”This year, he went down and he’s been playing well so far this spring despite the lousy weather,” Jones said. “He was ready. He played very well.”
   The next two Scotties were a pair of seniors, Tony D’Angelo and Travis Raynor, the latter who is in his first year of playing golf after a hip injury ended his baseball career. He’s been a welcome addition to a team that won its first regular-season match against New Egypt. BRHS was scheduled to play Wednesday and Thursday, both against Northern Burlington. Today’s match will be at Hanover Country Club and another chance for Hill to continue his hot start after his first really big win.
   ”It’s going to boost his confidence tremendously,” Jones said. “He’s like all kids. Everyone says, you’re good, you’re good. It digs on them that they’re not winning. We’ve had three matches, and he shot a 36 down at Rancocas last week in our match against Holy Cross. Earlier in the week, he shot a 39 and a 40 at Hanover. He’s already got, in the three matches and the tournaments, he’s got three medalist rounds that qualifies him for the state tournament. He only needs two more to qualify again. Weather provided, he’ll get one at Olde York and one at Hanover and have all his qualifying rounds in.”
   Then Russell Hill can focus on trying to add a couple more tournament titles, the Carl Arena Memorial Tournament on May 5 and the BCSL Championship on May 31.