The goal is to get to Winged Foot, the fabled Mamaroneck, N.Y., golf course. The road to Winged Foot goes through Portsmouth, R.I., tomorrow in the U.S. Golf Association’s 4-Ball Qualifying event at the Carnegie Abbey Club. Winged Foot is the site of the 2016 USGA 4-Ball Championship next spring.

Among the four Maine teams entered are the duos of Andrew Slattery and Matt Greenleaf, and Craig Chapman and Curt Jordan. It is a second attempt to qualify for Chapman and Jordan who once were Edward Little High School golf teammates. So if experience playing together is a factor in 4-ball competition, Chapman and Jordan have it on their side.

They play together at Fox Ridge, Martindale and The Woodlands, and Chapman has the advantage of having played Carnegie Abbey while he was on his college golf team at Bryant. Plus, both have been in the Tri-States competition between Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

If Slattery, who lives in Minot and is a Martindale member, and Greenleaf, a member at Sable Oaks, qualify, it could be attributable to the success Slattery has had the past two years. He was amateur champion of the Maine State Golf Association in 2014 and this year captured the Maine State Match Play title.

“I was also on the USGA State Team,” said Slattery, a senior at the University of Southern Maine, “and I got a little taste for this.”

In order to get to know Carnegie Abbey a little better, all four are in Rhode Island today playing a practice round at the course.

“Most of us are going down there the day before,” said Slattery last week about the eight Mainers in the qualifier.

To qualify for the 4-Ball Championship at Winged Foot May 19-25 would be a tremendous accomplishment, not to mention the honor of playing at a golf course which was the site of the U.S. Open in 1929, 1959, 1974, 1984 and 2006. Plus, Winged Foot is scheduled to host the Open in 2020. Located in an affluent Westchester County community, north of New York City, Winged Foot also has been the site of the U.S. Women’s Open, the U.S. Amateur, the U.S. Senior Amateur and the 1997 PGA. Winged Foot is a 36-hole course, designed by the renowned architect A. W. Tillinghast. All of which tells you that Winged Foot oozes with golf history.

“Maybe you will get to write about us at Winged Foot,” Jordan said.

That works for this golf writer, who is bidding golf readers adieu for the season with this as the 2015 golf column finale.

Foursome shines

The Fox Ridge foursome of pro Ron Darling with Jon Grant, Sean McCormick and Matt Ouellette carded a 132 for second place Sept. 21 at the Portland Country Club in a Maine Chapter New England PGA 2 best balls of 4.

MSGA to conduct Senior Tour

The Maine State Golf Association will conduct a Senior Tour event Tuesday at Biddeford-Saco and a Weekend Tournament event Friday and Saturday at Dutch Elm. The New England Senior Championship will be Tuesday and Wednesday in Oyster Harbors, Mass.

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