Alex Knoll, the head pro at Blue Shamrock Golf Club in
Palmerton, came up a couple of shots shy of earning a trip to the PGA
Championship as he finished up with a 4-over-par 76 in the final round of the
PGA Professional Championship Wednesday at Belfair’s West Course in Bluffton,
S.C.
Knoll, representing the Philadelphia Section PGA, finished
in a tie for 33rd place with a 5-over 292 total in the PGA Professional
Championship, presented by Cadillac, Club Car and OMEGA. Six players played off
for the final two spots in the field of the PGA Championship, which tees off
May 16 at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, N.Y. on Long Island.
It was the second year in a row that Knoll survived two cuts
and played all four rounds in PGA Professional Championship – I still like the
old-school moniker, the National Club Pro. He finished in a tie for 49th
place last June at the Bayonet and Black Horse Resort on northern California’s
Monterey Peninsula.
With the PGA Championship moving from its traditional August
date to May, the PGA Professional Championship moved from June to late April on
the golf calendar.
Knoll headed a group of three Philadelphia Section PGA pros
who played all four rounds at Belfair, including Ashley Grier, an Overbrook
Golf Club assistant pro. Grier and Mays Landing, N.J. native Joanna Coe, an
instructor at Baltimore Country Club and the three-time reigning Middle
Atlantic Section PGA Women’s Player of the Year, became the first women to play
four rounds in the PGA Professional Championship.
Grier, who has accepted a sponsor’s exemption to play in the
Valley Forge Invitational, a Symetra Tour event that tees off May 31 at Raven’s
Claw Golf Club in Limerick, carded a 4-over 76 in Wednesday’s final round to
finish among the group tied for 71st place at 10-over 297.
Coe also posted a 4-over 76 and finished in the group tied
for 51st place at 7-over 294.
Lookaway Golf Club assistant pro Michael Little put together
a couple of solid even-par 72s on the tough Belfair West Course to survive the
36- and 54-hole cuts. The Philadelphia Section PGA’s 2017 OMEGA Player of the
Year closed with a 3-over 75 to finish among the group tied for 59th
place at 8-over 295.
Alex Beach, a 29-year-old assistant pro at Westchester
Country Club in Rye, N.Y., captured the Walter Hagen Cup and the top prize of
$55,000 out of a total purse of $650,000 by finishing up with a sparkling
3-under 69 that left him with a 10-under 277 total.
Beach had entered Wednesday’s final round tied with
Metropolitan Section PGA rival Danny Balin, a 37-year-old assistant pro at
Fresh Meadow Country Club in Lake Success, N.Y. Beach actually took the
assistant pro spot vacated at Westchester when Balin departed to take the job
at Fresh Meadow.
Beach was too tough Wednesday as he rattled off three
straight birdies on the sixth, seventh and eighth holes to take control of the
tournament. After a birdie at the 13th hole, Beach was still nursing
a one-shot lead when he studied his 171-yard approach from the left rough at
the 15th hole. He bombed an 8-iron to four feet and made the birdie
putt to put the finishing touch on his championship run.
Balin kept his hold on second place with a solid 1-under 71
that left him two shots behind Beach in second at 8-under 279. Beach qualified
for the PGA Championship for the second time while it will mark Balin’s sixth
trip to one of the PGA Tour’s four major championships.
The Metropolitan Section PGA always has more than its share
of good players. Perhaps motivated by a chance to play in a PGA Championship at
a Metropolitan Section PGA facility, five of the 20 club pros that punched their
tickets to Bethpage Black are Metropolitan Section PGA pros, led by Beach and
Balin.
Third place went to Stuart Deane, the former golf coach at
the University of Texas at Arlington who works at the Texas Star Golf Course in
Euless, Texas. Deane carded a final round of 2-under 70 that left him at
4-under 283, four shots behind Balin. Deane will be playing in the PGA
Championship for the third time.
Jason Caron, a pro at the Mill River Club in Oyster Bay,
N.Y. on the Island, fired a final round of 2-under 70 to get a share of fourth
with Ben Cook, a pro at the Yankee Springs Golf Course in Wayland, Mich., at
2-under 285. You think some of the Mill River membership are going to be out
rooting for their guy at Bethpage? Yeah, me too.
Cook finished up with a solid 1-under 71. Caron and Cook
each will be making their first PGA Championship appearance.
Andrew Filbert, a pro at Royal Poinciana Golf Club in
Naples, Fla., birdied the first hole of the six-for-two playoff to emerge with
a berth at Bethpage Black.
Yet another Metropolitan Section PGA representative, Upper
Montclair Country Club head of instruction Tyler Hall, birdied the third hole
of the playoff to punch the final ticket to the PGA Championship.
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