Parson hits the jackpot with Haverford Philadelphia PGA Classic vicitory

   Mark Parson, a 48-year-old teaching pro at Harbor Pines Golf Club in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., is $100,000 richer Wednesday than he was when he teed off in Tuesday’s 22^nd annual Haverford Philadelphia PGA Classic at Sunnybrook Golf Club.

   It is the richest top prize offered in a PGA Section tournament around the country and it annually creates a buzz among the talented group of local pros in the Philadelphia Section. The Haverford Trust Company puts up the jackpot and the event, played on the day after Memorial Day, is circled on the calendar each year for those pros.

   The prize structure drops off pretty quickly to more normal levels for a Philadelphia Section PGA events, so, in many ways, it has a winner-take-all feel to it.

   Parson teed off in the last group of the day Tuesday, knowing that 3-under-par 69 over the 6,740-yard, par-72 Sunnybrook layout, was in the clubhouse. But he did his best to ignore the goings-on with everybody else in the 150-player field that included 138 pros and 12 amateurs and concentrate on what he was doing.

   Parson immediately went out and made birdies at the third, fifth, sixth and eighth holes to get it to 4-under. A bogey at the ninth left him at 3-under making the turn.

   Parson went bogey-birdie on 10 and 11 and went bogey-birdie again on 13 and 14. He was still 3-under with five holes to go.

   But he reached the par-5 16^th in two and got an easy two-putt birdie and then dropped a 30-foot bomb for birdie at the par-3 17^th. Parson wasn’t exactly sure where he stood, but he figured 5-under was a good number. A nervous par at the last enabled him to finish with a 5-under 67 and indeed earned him the big prize, $100 grand.

   “I don’t want to tell you how scared I was on that last putt,” Parson told The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Joe Juliano. “I didn’t know what the score was. I didn’t know what the winner was. I didn’t know anything and I tried to keep it that way.”

   The early lead was established in the very first group of the day when Radley Run Country Club assistant pro Brett Melton, the Philadelphia Section’s reigning Omega Player of the Year, fired a 3-under 69.

   That ultimately landed Melton in a three-way tie for second place with Squires Golf Club assistant pro Corey McAlarney and Brian Bergstol, an assistant at the Shawnee Inn & Golf Resort. Pretty sure McAlarney worked in the Sunnybrook pro shop a couple of years ago before moving on to Squires.

   ACE Club assistant pro Billy Stewart, a standout at Malvern Prep and Saint Joseph’s University, headed a group of four players tied for fifth at 2-under 70. Stewart, the Philadelphia Section PGA’s Comeback Player of the Year in 2017, is a past winner of the Haverford Philadelphia PGA Classic, but I’m pretty sure the top prize was only $50 grand then. Still, a pretty good chunk of change.

   Defending champion Andrew Turner, in his second year as an assistant at Sunnybrook, also finished tied for fifth place at 2-under 70. Rounding out the foursome at 2-under were Lookaway Golf Club’s Michael Little, the Philadelphia Section PGA’s Omega Player of the Year in 2016, and University of Pennsylvania head coach Jason Calhoun.

   Three members of the Philadelphia’s standout senior contingent, including reigning eight-time Robert “Skee” Riegel Senior Player of the Year Stu Ingraham, the head of instruction at the M Golf Range in Newtown Square, headed a foursome tied for 10^th at 1-under 71.

   Joining Ingraham at that figure were fellow senior stalwarts George Forster, the head pro at Radnor Valley Country Club, and Philmont Country Club’s Dave Quinn, the reigning Philadelphia Section PGA Professional Championship winner.

   Rounding out the quartet at 1-under 71 was Mike Tobiason of Deerfield Golf Club.

   Four more players – Overbrook Golf Club head pro Eric Kennedy, Jamie Komancheck of RiverCrest Golf Club & Preserve, Philadelphia Country Club head pro Scott Reilly, and Stephen Sieracki of Indian Springs Country Club – shared 14^th place, each matching par with a 72 at Sunnybrook.