WATERVILLE — John Hayes IV knew there was an old VHS tape lying around his parents’ house of the first time he saw Mark Plummer play golf. It just happened to turn up within a fortnight of the first time he got to play with him.

“I actually found it because they’re selling the house. I found it a couple of weeks ago down in the basement,” Hayes said.

John Hayes, left, and Mark Plummer, chat while waiting to tee off on day three of the Maine Amateur at the Waterville Country Club in Oakland on Thursday. Staff photo by Michael G. Seamans

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Hayes’ memories of Plummer that day would be very fuzzy without the tape, because Hayes was 5 years old when he saw Plummer play a rising young golfer named Tiger Woods in the 1995 U.S. Amateur Championship.

Hayes was in the gallery at Newport (R.I.) Country Club with his mother when Plummer, then 43, gave the then 19-year-old Stanford sophomore all he could handle in the semifinals, which Woods ultimately won, 2-up.

Hayes’ father, Dr. John Hayes III, was on the medical team at the tournament, so his son could see the action up close. Naturally, like many of the thousands who watched the match, his eyes were usually peeled to the young phenom.

“He recognized Tiger Woods, and was excited at that time because Mark Plummer was from Maine. He thought that was kind of cool,” Dr. Hayes said.

“A week later, we were at the Maine Mid-Am,” he added. “Mark was in the final group. I had finished and Johnny was with me. So, I said Mark Plummer’s coming up, and he went and got a ball out of my bag and said ‘Mr. Plummer, would you sign my ball for me?'”

Dr. Hayes reminded Plummer of the encounter after watching his son run away with the final round of the 96th Maine Amateur at Waterville Country Club on Thursday.

Plummer started the day two strokes behind Hayes for the lead. He immediately pulled closer with a birdie on the first hole. But Hayes responded with birdies on the next three holes and impressed Plummer with how he closed out the tournament — with a final-round 67, the low score of the day, to win by five shots at 9-under 201.

“That’s right up there for the last round of the amateur,” Plummer said. “He was solid. He was obviously playing kind of safe the last few holes and laying up in front of the greens, but he looked like he could shoot 63 or 64 there for a while.”

Hayes’ dominance almost made much of the final round seem like a relaxing Thursday afternoon round among friends, as Plummer joked with his playing partners and members of the gallery all day. It added to Hayes’ enjoyment of winning his first Maine Amateur.

“I always see him at the Maine Amateur every year and other tournaments, too. It’s cool to finally play with him,” Hayes said. “He still grinds it out just like (1995), because Tiger hit it so well and couldn’t make a putt and Mark was making 20-footers.”

On Thursday, it was Hayes who was hitting it well off the tee and making putts. Not that Plummer played poorly. He shot even par for the round to finish at 4-under 206, five shots behind Hayes and five shots ahead of third-place Ricky Jones.

“I was proud of the way I played. I had three good rounds, shot par or better every round,” said Plummer, who sat out last year’s tournament due to a family matter. “At my age (63), I guess that’s as good as I’m going to do. I just ran into a buzzsaw.”

Someone then asked the 13-time Maine Amateur champion where this year’s tournament ranked among all of the others he’s played.

“Fourteenth,” he said before bursting out into laughter.

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33

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