When local qualifying for the 125th U.S. Open Championship was held at Shaker Ridge Country Club on May 12, A.J. Cavotta of Saratoga Springs found himself in a playoff of four players vying for two spots.

Cavotta was the first of the four to advance with a par on Shaker’s hole No. 1. The other three players bogeyed the hole.

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Cavotta has faced the stress of golf playoffs before and said he got caught up with watching his opponents’ performances. His strategy at Shaker Ridge was to not pay attention to what the other players were doing.

“This time I decided to not watch a single shot that the other guys were hitting and so instead I was looking up in the trees trying to find a bird,” he said.

Not a birdie. A bird. He’s an avid birder and has discovered the hobby does wonders for his mental game.

His girlfriend Alison Sawyer was on his bag at Shaker Ridge and she had a checklist of birds they heard and saw during the tournament. Sawyer just graduated with her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from the University at Albany and works as a naturalist for the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission.

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His hobby started when his boss and coach, PGA Teaching Pro Anders Mattson, showed him his bird sound recordings on his phone using a birding app.

“Anders would always........

© Times Union