The CSGA Links Volume 2 Issue 2 April, 2014 | Page 2

Jeff Hedden Captures 2002 Connecticut Amateur at
CC of Farmington
Summer, 2002 ~ Article by Rick Odermatt

T

he newspaper stories about Jeff Hedden’s dramatic victory in
the 100th Connecticut Amateur Championship all focused on the
same human-interest angle. And why not? The fact that Hedden’s
caddie, Nicole Faniola, is both his girlfriend and the 1997 Connecticut
Women’s Amateur champion makes for good press.

Not only do both Hedden and Faniola have state amateur titles to
their names, they are also the reigning men’s and women’s champions at
their home club, Fox Hopyard GC in Haddam.

Hedden and Justin Goodhue of Glastonbury Hills CC played a
marvelous final match. Together, they recorded 19 birdies over a combined
70 holes of play on the final day of the exhausting week-long championship.
Hedden, who is 38, had 10 (five in the morning round and five in the
afternoon) while Goodhue had nine.

Hedden had to be on top of his game to hold off the 20 year-old
Goodhue who will be a senior at the University of Virginia in the fall.
Hedden was 2-up after the morning round, but Goodhue birdied four of
the first six holes in the afternoon and the match was all square going into
the final nine holes.

After losing the 11th and 12th holes with a pair of bogey’s, Hedden
drew even again with birdies at the 12th and 13th. And after Goodhue
made his own mistakes by bogeying the 16th and 17th, the championship
was his.

Ironically, Hedden quit serious competitive golf 12 years ago when
personal and business obligations interfered. He had won 10 consecutive
club championships at New London CC from 1979-88, the first when he
was 16, but he put serious competition at the state level and beyond on
hold for nine years. Three years ago, he recommitted himself to the game
and set the Connecticut Amateur Championship as his long-range goal.

“I almost got unfocused walking down 16 and 17,” Hedden said. “I
thought, oh no, this is what I’ve been working for and now that I’m here,
what am I going to do? I said to Nicole, ‘Please just keep talking to me.’ ”
Pictured: Jeff Hedden and Nicole Faniola celebrate a hard-earned victory at the
100th Connecticut Amateur