Quaker Valley grads join forces to win golf tournament for brothers

Alex Tanabe was living in Philadelphia last year when the covid-19 pandemic hit, and when his employer told him to start working from home, he decided to move back to Pittsburgh to be closer to his family.

Returning home allowed him to reconnect with his younger brother Chris on the golf course.

With some encouragement from their mother, Jennifer, Alex and Chris decided to enter the WPGA’s Brothers Tournament. Mother’s intuition turned out to be spot on.

The Tanabes, who are Quaker Valley graduates, won the 72nd edition of the tournament July 30 at Shannopin Country Club.

“We play a lot together and the brother-to-brother aspect always kind of leads to trying to one up each other,” Alex said. “To not have to worry about what he’s shooting and what I’m doing while working as a team was welcomed.”

The Tanabes finished 4-under par, one stroke better than three teams that tied for second place.

Alex and Chris are at different points in their golf game. Alex hadn’t played in a competitive event since high school and doesn’t play much outside of a weekly game at Allegheny Country Club with Chris and their two other brothers, Michael and Adam.

Chris is headed to play at Maryland in the fall while starting on his master’s degree after playing four years at Bucknell. He practices daily and regularly enters competitive events. To win one with his brother, who rarely gets to experience that atmosphere, was special.

“A couple days before we played, my mother kept telling me that we needed to win because Alex was so set on winning it,” Chris said. “I was like ‘OK mom, I’ll do it.’ I just went out and played like I would at any other tournament, but it was nice to win with him since he doesn’t get to do this too much. Hopefully we can do it again next year.”

The event featured a Chapman-style format where on every hole, each brother hits a tee shot then plays each other’s ball for their second shot. From there, they picked the best second shot and alternated shots from there on out.

The Tanabes carded a 4-under par 31 on the front nine, but they parred holes 10 through 14. The 15th hole proved to be a turning point.

“We made almost no mistakes on the front nine,” Alex said. “Then we got stuck in a rut on the back nine. On the 15th hole, we got it up near the green and hit a chip shot to 25 feet and Chris made the putt for birdie. That was a momentum boost and a relief. We were getting a little antsy with no birdies on the card on the back nine, and we knew there were some teams out there that were close to us.”

The Tanabes were in one of the first groups out on the course, so they had a long wait to see if their score would hold up. After grabbing lunch, they went out to the practice green adjacent to the 18th green and watched as each team chasing them finished up.

“I was hitting some practice putts on the green for the last half-hour prior to the final group coming in because I was expecting to be in a playoff,” Chris said. “I know Alex was checking the leaderboard on his phone a lot, which made me want to check mine.

“We basically watched every bullet we had to dodge. The last group that could’ve tied us had an 8-footer for birdie and they missed it. It was a relief, especially for Alex, because he hadn’t been in competitive golf for a while and a playoff would’ve been pretty stressful.”

Chris entered the Pennsylvania State Open at the Philadelphia Cricket Club, which began Tuesday, prior to heading off to Maryland for his final year of collegiate golf.

Alex has a new trophy to display, but he is excited to return to his weekly game with his brothers.

“For me, it’s just back to going out and playing with my brothers and trying to beat them,” Alex said. “I try to beat Chris, but that doesn’t happen very often. He’s got bigger and better things ahead of him in golf.”