When the 2018-2019 college golf season gets under way in a
month or so, Drexel coach Ben Feld will be welcoming a Pennsylvania Amateur
champion back to his lineup.
Connor Schmidt, the former Peters Township standout playing
out of Nemacolin Country Club, unleashed a birdie barrage in the final 10 holes
Wednesday at Sunnehanna Country Club in Johnstown to pull away for a victory in
the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s 105th Amateur Championship, presented by
LECOM.
Schmidt, a junior at Drexel, ran off six birdies in a
stretch of eight holes, beginning with the par-5 ninth over the classic A.W.
Tillinghast design at Sunnehanna, home to the annual Sunnehanna Amateur, one of
the marquee stops on the summer amateur circuit. It enabled Schmidt to fire a
5-under-par 65 that gave him a 7-under 203 total and a two-shot victory.
Anthony Sebastianelli, a scholastic standout at Abington
Heights who just completed a solid college career at Central Connecticut, had
returned to Sunnehanna Wednesday morning to complete his second round.
He was 4-under for his round with five holes to play and he
birdied two of those final five to complete the low individual round of the
tournament, a sparkling 6-under 64. That drew Sebastianelli, who plays out of
Huntsville Golf Club, even with Brady Pevnarik, the Latrobe senior who had led
by himself after an opening-round 65. Pevnarik and Sebastianelli teed off for
the final round deadlocked at 6-under.
For a long time, nobody made a move. There was little
warning of the explosion to come for Schmidt, who birdied the first and then
made bogeys at two and four to fall to 1-over for his round.
When a 10-foot birdie putt at the par-5 ninth went around
and in, Schmidt was off and running. He made it three straight with birdies at
10 and 11. Then he birdied 13 and 14.
Still, Sebastianelli, playing two groups behind Schmidt, was
hanging tough and the two were tied for the lead when Schmidt teed off at the
par-5 15th with more weather threatening to interrupt the
proceedings.
With the wind coming up, Schmidt ended up in the fescue
after a couple of indifferent shots. He gouged it out and then chipped it close
for a par save that might have been just as important as all those birdies.
He had one more birdie left in him, though. His 8-iron shot
on the 175-yard, par-3 16th finished eight feet from the hole. He
rolled in the birdie try for his seventh of the day. He had three 2s on his
card with birdies on all three of the par-3s on Sunnehanna’s inward nine.
“Most of the putts I made on the back nine were right to
left,” Schmidt told the PAGA website concerning that final birdie putt at the
16th. “I was seeing the lines really well because of that and this
was another one. I rolled it dead center with the perfect speed.”
Pars at the last two holes gave Schmidt a brilliant back
nine of 5-under 30 and a place alongside the greats of Pennsylvania amateur
golf on the trophy.
Sebastianelli settled for a runnerup finish as a final round
of 1-over 71 left him alone in second place at 5-under 205.
Pevarnik, playing out of Hannastown Golf Club, finally
backed off in the final round after sitting at the top of the leaderboard for
two days. The Penn State recruit had a 3-over 73 Wednesday to finish tied for
third at 3-under 207. I’m sure Penn State head coach Greg Nye can’t wait to
pencil Pevarnik’s name in the lineup, but he’ll have to wait until the kid
finishes his senior year of high school.
Joining Pevarnik at 3-under was Nathan Smith, Pennsylvania’s
finest amateur since Jay Sigel was winning this championship 10 times. Smith,
playing out of Pinecrest Country Club, was his routinely excellent self,
posting a third straight 69.
Rounding out the trio tied for third was Windber Country
Club’s Daniel Thompson, who was right in the thick of things the whole way,
matching par in the final round with a 70. I’m sure he had some local support
from the J-town golf community.
Mark Goetz couldn’t quite overtake Pevnarik for
low-Hannastown honors, but he closed with a 2-under 68 to finish alone in sixth
at 2-under 208. Goetz, a scholastic standout at Kiski Prep, is a sophomore at
West Virginia.
Pevnarik and Goetz did take the state team title back to
Greensburg with them. The team competition was the first two rounds, so it
wasn’t official until Tuesday’s second round was completed Wednesday. Pevnarik
and Goetz put up a 6-under 274 to finish five shots clear of the Nemacolin pair
of Schmidt and Brett Young, who finished second at 1-under 279.
The western Pennsylvania types dominated at Sunnehanna and
the southeastern Pennsylvania contingent was led by a couple of unlikely
players as Carey Bina of Radnor Valley Country Club and Evan Brown, a PAGA
individual member, shared seventh place, each landing on 1-under 209.
I chronicled Bina’s scholastic career at Radnor in an earlier
life at the Delco Daily Times. The
Central League champion as a junior in 2011, Bina went to college at Wake
Forest and Elon, but never played college golf. But he obviously has not
forgotten how to play. After opening with a 73, Bina rattled off consecutive
2-under 68s.
Brown was the Ches-Mont League champion as a senior at
Kennett in the fall of 2016 and is coming off his freshman season at Loyola of
Maryland. He carded a spectacular final round of 4-under 66 – only Schmidt’s 65
was better on this day – to join Bina at 209.
Brandon Knaub, a reinstated amateur who was a high school
standout at Dallastown, closed with a 2-under 68 to finish alone in ninth at
even-par 210.
Defending champion J.D. Hughes was unable to keep the
Pennsylvania Amateur in Penn State hands for a third straight year. Hughes, a
senior for the Nittany Lions who plays out of Carlisle Country Club, couldn’t
sustain any momentum he might have had from an opening-round 66. A final-round 74 left him in a tie for 10th place at
1-over 211.
He was joined at that figure by Oakmont Country Club’s Chuck
Nettles, who had a final round 72. Nettles, like the champion Schmidt, is a Peters
Township product, although a decade or so earlier.
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