• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

A Chronicle of the Philadelphia Section PGA and its Members by Peter C. Trenham 1990 to 1999 1990 Dick Smith was elected president of the PGA of America. Stu Ingraham played on the winning PGA Cup Team. 1991 Frank Dobbs won the Philadelphia Open, Pennsylvania Open and Assistants Championship plus ten more events. 1992 Rick Osberg became the eighth player to win the Philadelphia PGA Section Championship more than two times. 1993 John Poole was the national winner of the Bill Strausbaugh Award for his work in Club Relations. 1994 “Rookie of the Year” Jay Sigel and Jack Kiefer each won tournaments on the PGA Senior Tour for the first time. 1995 Ed Dougherty, Ted Tryba & Jim Furyk got 1st PGA Tour wins. Gene Fieger won Philadelphia and PA Opens. 1996 Jack Connelly was on the way to being president of the PGA as he was elected to the office of secretary. 1997 Doug Ritter won the national Bill Strausbaugh Award. Gene Fieger won Section Championship & PA Open. 1998 Jason Lamp won the Philadelphia PGA Championship and the Philadelphia Open. 1999 Pete Oakley won the PGA Senior Club Pro. Jim Furyk was on the Ryder Cup Team for a second time. 1990 The Philadelphia Section began the 1990s as the PGA’s 12 th largest PGA Section. The Section office had five full time employees as well as the field staff that worked from tournament to tournament on a per diem basis. The Section’s spring meeting was held on the first Monday of April. The Oak Terrace Country Club and their new professional Kerry Mattern hosted the pros . The first vice president and tournament chairman Jack Connelly, who was the professional at the Huntingdon Valley Country Club professional, presented the tournament schedule. The Section members were playing for more than $600,000 that year. A large part of that was the Sec- tion Championship, which was again $100.000. Section president and Ta- vistock Country Club professional Charles Genter announced that the Sec- tion had raised more than $100,000 in 1989 for its official charity, the Vari- ety Club for handicapped children. Ron Jaworski was introduced as the hon- orary chairman of the Philadelphia PGA/Dodge Junior Tour for 1990. There were 25 events on the junior schedule and 400 boys and girls had signed up and paid their dues. The Section secretary, Lu Lu Country Club professional Jack MacCarty, announced that there were now 190 apprentices on the Section rolls. There were now 11,070 PGA members and 7,058 apprentices paying dues to the PGA of America. The number of apprentices had almost doubled in ten years. Charles Genter The Masters Tournament was played at the Augusta National Golf Section President 1990-1991 Club during the first full week of April. The winner was Nick Faldo and PGA Master Professional he was only the second person to win the Masters in back-to-back years. 1992 “Golf Professional of the Year” Just like the year before Faldo had to survive a sudden-death playoff to nail down the win. He and Ray Floyd had tied at 278. The playoff began on the tenth hole. They halved the first playoff hole in pars and Faldo won with a par on the next hole when Floyd 1 made a bogey five. Faldo’s four rounds were 71, 72, 66 and 69. John Huston and Lanny Watkins tied for third with 283s. First prize was $225,000. There were no entries from the Philadelphia Section. Gary Player won the PGA Seniors’ Championship for the third time. It was played in mid April on the PGA National Golf Club’s Champion Course at Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Player outplayed one of the strongest fields in the history of the tournament with rounds of 74, 69, 65 and 73 for a 281 total. Chi Chi Rodriguez turned in a last round 66 to finish two strokes out of first pace at 283. Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino tied for fourth at 285. Ralph Terry tied for 25 th with a 301 and won $3,300. Dick Hendrickson finished in a tie for 58 th at 309. He won$915. Rex Baxter and the Olde Masters Driving Range owner, Bob Thatcher, missed the cut. Terry and Hendrickson were in the field off their standings on the Senior PGA Tour. Thatcher and Butch Sweigart were exempt off their finishes in the 1989 PGA Senior Club Pro Championship but Sweigart, who was the professional at the Ingleside Manor Golf Club, didn’t play in the PGA Seniors’ Championship. Baxter, the professional at the Stone Harbor Golf Club, was exempt as a former winner of the PGA Club Professional Championship. First prize was $75,000 from a purse of $450,000. Ted Tryba found it difficult to get a spot in the starting fields on the PGA Tour even though he had qualified at the Players School in December. The problem was that his number was floating between 50 and 59 so there were 175+ players ahead of him who could decide whether they wanted to play each week before he would be called. He had made it into four tournaments, winning a small check in one, so with another week off in the third week of April he entered the PGA Ben Hogan Tour’s Gateway Open at Fort Meyers, Florida. He didn’t improve his position on the PGA Tour but he helped the balance in his bank account. After shooting rounds of 72 and 70 Tryba entered the last round six shots off the lead but in the third and final round he birdied the last hole for a five under par 67. His 209 total put him in a three-way tie for first with John Daly (209) and Bruce Fleisher (209). The three pros went into a sudden death playoff, which Tryba ended quickly with an eagle three on the first hole. Tryba’s first victory as a professional earned him a check for $20,000. Steve Haskins finished fourth at 210. The purse was $100,000. Ed Kramer, who was now the professional at the Pitman Golf Club, won the Philadelphia Section Senior Championship and an invitation to the Bell Atlantic Senior Classic on the second Tuesday of May. The victory also qualified Kramer for the PGA Senior Club Professional Championship. The Reading Country Club and Joe Dahl, who was part owner and head professional, hosted the tournament. Kramer turned in a two under par 68 to earn the title and a check for $200. The purse was $900. Ted McKenzie, the teaching professional at the Waltz Golf Farm Driving Range, finished second with a 70. St. Davids Golf Club professional Pete Trenham, Gulph Mills Golf Club professional Willie Scholl and the Woodland Hills Golf Club professional Bob Hutnik tied for third with 71s. Linwood Country Club head professional Jeff LeFevre, won the Burlington Classic in the third week of May. LeFevre won by one stroke as he put together rounds of 66 on Sunday and 68 on Monday for a six under par 134. Ed Dougherty, who was on a break from the PGA Tour, led the first day with a 63. He ended up in second place at 135. Noel Caruso (136), the Westover Inn & Country Club assistant and Whitemarsh Valley Country Club as- sistant Miguel Biamon (137) finished third and fourth. The purse was $11,500 and LeFevre took home a check for $2,000. On the same Monday that the Burlington Classic was ending Tom Robertson, who managed the Golf Shoppe, was leading the local qualifying for the U.S. Open in central Pennsylvania. Qualifying was held at the par 71 Colonial Country Club. When play began in the morning it was cold and wet, which made for scoring difficult for the players with early starting times. Robertson (142) put together rounds of 73 and 69 to take the medalist honors by one stroke. Ted Tryba (143) and Ray Silnik (144), who was now the head professional at the Silver Creek Country Club, picked up the next two places. Ben Witter, an assistant at the Hershey Country Club, and Steve Snyder, the professional at the Berkleigh Country Club, tied for fourth and fifth with 145s. Terry Hertzog (146), the assistant at the Lancaster Country Club, won the last spot in a sudden-death playoff by making a par on the third extra hole. The low round of the day was an afternoon round of 67 by Witter, which moved him past 20 players. Emlyn Aubrey made it through local qualifying at another site in the country. Local qualifying for the U.S. Open in Philadelphia was held on the fourth Tuesday of May, which was the day 2 after qualifying was held in Harrisburg. Rolling Green Golf Club (par 71) and Llanerch Country Club (par 72) hosted the qualifying. The leaders at 139 were Ed Dougherty with a 70 at Rolling Green in the morning round and 69 at Llanerch after lunch and the teaching pro at the Burlington Country Club, Greg Farrow, who posted a 67 in the morning at Rolling Green to go with a 72 at Llanerch in the afternoon. Jim McGovern was next at 140 without the help of ever having played either course. McGovern drove in from Kentucky where he had been play- ing in an event on the PGA’s Ben Hogan Tour. McGovern’s brother and a neighbor from northern New Jersey each walked one of the courses on Monday. They met at a motel that night to give McGovern the yardages and to tell him how to play the courses.

Load more

  84

Copy Link