Second of two golf columns.
I must begin this column with a correction, a mea culpa. In my last column, about golfer Keegan Bradley who was born in Woodstock and spent his early years there, I declared that he was the “most prominent and accomplishment sports figure from Vermont on the national or international stage.”
That statement is not the problem. Keegan, 38, has had a remarkable year of success in 2024, building on a solid career on the PGA Tour. He has been named the Captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team in 2025, a singular honor.
The offending column states at its conclusion that Bradley is “arguably the best golfer ever to come out of this region.” That statement is inarguably untrue.
It might have been true had I added one small word after “best” and before “golfer”— that word is “male.” The best, most accomplished golfer from Vermont, and indeed the region, was born here in Middlebury in 1956:
Patty Sheehan.
Patty is one of the greatest female golfers in the history of the game. She won 35 LPGA tournaments in her career, including the U.S. Women’s Open twice (1992,’94) and four other major championships. She qualified for the LPGA Hall of Fame with her 30th Tour victory in 1993 and was selected for the World Golf Hall of Fame that same year. In 1987, she was one of eight “Athletes Who Care” selected as the Sportspersons of the Year by Sports Illustrated for her work with abused women.
She has lived much of her life in the West, principally Nevada (Reno), since moving there in 1968 from Middlebury with her family after her dad, Bobo Sheehan, retired as ski coach at Middlebury (and Olympic ski coach in Italy in 1956). With her longtime partner Rebecca Gaston, she raised two adopted children in Reno who are now in their twenties and out of college.
A terrific skier as a child in Vermont, Patty transferred that passion to golf in her student days at Wooster High School in Reno and at the University of Nevada and San Jose State University, winning multiple amateur championships.
Which brings us to another Vermont golfer who, like Keegan Bradley, has had a terrific 2024 season, and like Patty Sheehan, is in the midst of a remarkable career as a junior and amateur golfer:
Lucas Politano.
Lucas is a 17-year-old senior at Otter Valley Union High School and might be the best golfer of any age in Vermont. He won the Vermont State Amateur Championship (golfers of all ages!) at the Burlington Country Club in July in a two-hole playoff against three other golfers.
This win qualified him to play in the U.S. Amateur at the legendary Hazeltine (Minn.) National Golf Club against the top amateurs of all ages.
The 2024 Vermont High School championship is being contested this week, again at Burlington Country Club. Lucas posted the lowest score both last year and in 2022. As a freshman in 2021, he lost by one shot. His Otter Valley team has won two of the last three championships.
Here are some of the highlights of Lucas’s remarkable summer:
• In May, he finished second in the Spring Classic at the Manchester Country Club against the top amateurs of all ages in Vermont.
• He finished ninth in the Adam Scott Junior Championship in Florida with junior golfers (18 and under) from all over the world.
• At the New England Junior PGA Championships in Harvard, Mass., he won the tournament playing the best junior amateurs in New England.
• He made the cut at the National Junior Championship at the Congressional Country Club outside Washington, D.C., finishing 32nd in a field of over 300 players.
Keep in mind, Lucas has been playing against junior players older than he. Ranked fifth among junior golfers in the Northeast (and third in his class of 2025), he will turn 18 next June. He has just started his senior year at Otter Valley (the Politanos live in Brandon). You’ll find him on the Otter basketball team this winter.
It’s not surprising that Lucas is the Club Champion at the Ralph Myhre course in Middlebury, where his dad, Paul, is the head professional and assistant coach of the men’s and woman’s golf team at Middlebury College.
He comes from a golf family. His mom, Erika, won the 2009 Vermont Mid-Amateur Championship and his sister Mia, a senior at Middlebury College and member of the women’s golf team, won the Vermont Women’s Amateur two years ago.
He has twin siblings two years older. Thomas is a sophomore at SUNY Delphi, majoring in Golf and Turf Management. Elana, an all-round athlete, is studying psychology at St. Lawrence University, her dad’s alma mater.
Paul is justly proud of Lucas’s play: “It’s thrilling, a great adventure. He played in three major junior championships!” He appreciates especially that Lucas’s nature is “even-keeled, even-tempered. It’s great to hear from other players’ parents that they love his demeanor and attitude.”
As a golf pro, Paul’s summers are quite occupied. He credits Erika for making it all work. As a school counselor, she has her summers largely free, so she does most of the planning and scheduling for Lucas’s tournament play.
“The last couple of summers on the road,” she said, “have been hard at times. But we’ve been to such beautiful places, competing against the best young players in the world.”
Lucas has chosen to study and play golf next year at Rutgers University. “It felt right as soon as I stepped on campus: ‘This is where I want to be.’ I stayed with some of the kids on the team and thought I would fit in well. I really like the coaches.”
Rutgers is one of the 17 schools in the Big Ten Conference, which now includes major universities from Rutgers in New Jersey across the country to UCLA and USC on the West Coast. It’s likely Lucas will see the USA in his college golf experience.
Keegan Bradley, we should note, stayed in the East and played college golf at St. John’s in New York.
Perhaps Vermonter Lucas Politano is the legatee of his Vermont predecessors Keegan and Patty.
We’ll see. Good luck, Lucas!
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Karl Lindholm can be contacted at [email protected].
