Competitive golf gets hotter as temperatures warm up
When the calendar turns to June, competitive golf in western Pennsylvania gets as hot as the temperatures.
Oh sure, there’s been plenty of golf played around here since winter broke. We’ve all been out hacking and slashing around but starting next month, the biggest and oldest championships for amateurs and club professionals will be held. Both the Tri-State Section PGA and the West Penn Golf Association will sponsor several elite events.
The month of champions gets an early star when the West Penn’s Mid-Amateur is held at Lake View in North East, Pa., on Thursday. This is an event created in 1985 for amateurs 25 years of age and older, and has been won eight times by Sean Knapp and twice by Nathan Smith.
June ends with the biggest payday of the year for the professionals, the Frank B. Fuhrer Jr. Invitational at the Pittsburgh Field Club, which pays the winning professional $30,000.
In between, there will be plenty of opportunities for amateurs and professionals alike to shine.
One of those opportunities will take place at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort June 17-18, just after the U.S. Open at Merion. The West Penn will be hosting its own Open on the Mystic Rock course, a 36-hole test. Some of the great names in western Pennsylvania golf have won the West Penn Open, including Arnold Palmer, Bob Ford, Roy Vucinich, Lew Worsham, Jock Sutherland and W.C. Fownes, Jr.
It is the oldest tournament in Western Pennsylvania, dating back to 1899.
The Tri-State Open, another of the venerable events in the area, is a very much sought-after title by the club pros, who have their work cut out for them at one of the classic courses in the area, New Castle Country Club June 3-4.
The Tam O’Shanter Open is held on a course, the Tam O’Shanter Golf Course that is rich with history. It was built in 1929 and has always been considered one of Pennsylvania’s finest public golf courses. Sam Snead shot a 65 there in an exhibition in 1949. Even today, despite its relative short yardage, the course gives the Tri-State pros all they can handle. That even will be held June 10 in Sharon.
Two other events round out the June schedule: the West Penn Senior Amateur at Hannastown Golf Club (June 6) and the West Penn Boys at South Hill Country Club (June 28).
n With the U.S. Open just a couple weeks away, most of the best players in the world have settled in Dublin, Ohio, for the Memorial Tournament. Muirfield Village Golf Club is the creation of Jack Nicklaus and is the kind of course that tests golfers in many of the same ways Merion Golf Club will.
n Boo Weekley has often said that if he wasn’t playing golf for a living he’d be hunting or fishing. Well, after Weekley’s victory last week at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, he can afford to fish all he wants. The win was his first in over five years and earned him $1.1 million. The down-home boy from Milton, Fla., can buy all the fishing and hunting gear he wants now.
I’m looking for feature story ideas about people or events around the district. I you have one, send it to me at mike.dudurich@gmail.com.
Mike Dudurich is a freelance golf writer and hosts The Golf Show on Sports Radio 93.7 The Fan Saturday mornings at 7 a.m.