Playing a little catch-up with the Philadelphia Section PGA circuit …
Bidermann Golf Club instructors Braden Shattuck and Zac Oakley seem to be feeding off each other lately.
Shattuck and Oakley, along with Brian Bergstol, the talented instructor at the Shawnee Inn & Golf Resort, each carded a 2-under-par 68 at Conestoga Country Club as they shared first place in the Conestoga Classic June 21st.
A late-day thunderstorm forced suspension of play and not all the competitors were able to complete their rounds. Enough players finished to allow for purse distribution. However, no Rolex Player of the Year points were awarded. The Conestoga Classic was scheduled to count toward the season-long points standings.
That does not change the fact that Shattuck and Oakley have been playing some good golf lately. Shattuck had captured the title in the Burlington Classic at Burlington Country Club June 7th with Oakley finishing a tie for second place.
Shattuck, who starred scholastically at Sun Valley and played a year of college golf at Delaware, got off to an erratic start. He made a birdie at the first hole, bogeyed the third, birdied the fourth and double-bogeyed the fifth.
Shattuck proceeded to birdie four of the next six holes, the sixth, eighth, 10th and 11th, to get it to 3-under. A bogey at the 16th hole dropped him back to 2-under.
Oakley got off to a fast start with birdies at the first and third holes. A bogey at the 12th hole dropped Oakley back to 1-under before back-to-back birdies at 16 and 17 got him to 3-under. A bogey at the last dropped him into the three-way tie for the lead.
Bergstol was steady, making back-to-back birdies at the fourth and fifth holes, stumbling briefly with a bogey at the eighth and getting it back to 2-under with a birdie at 16.
Alex Knoll, the reigning two-time winner of the Philadelphia PGA Professional Championship, headed a group of three players tied for fourth place at 1-under 69. Knoll, an instructor at Glen Brook Golf Club, was joined at that figure by Trevor Bensel, the talented assistant pro at Overbrook Golf Club, and veteran PGA professional John Allen.
Spring Ford Country Club head pro Rich Steinmetz and Andrew Turner, playing out of the Berkshire Country Club pro shop, shared seventh place as each matched par with a 70.
Rounding out the top 10 was a group of four players tied for ninth place at 1-over 71, including Andy Signor of the Pine Meadows Golf Complex, Steve Swartz of West Shore Country Club, Parks Price of the Country Club of York and Ross Brown of Fox Hill Country Club.
The same three co-medalists, Shattuck, Oakley and Bergstol, shared first place in the concurrent Philadelphia Assistants’ Organization (PAO) event.
The 1-under 69s posted by Knoll and Bensel landed them in a tie for fourth place and Turner’s 70 left him alone in sixth place.
Allen’s 1-under 69 was good enough to give him a four-shot victory in the Senior division.
Hugo Mazzalupi of Patriots Glen National Golf Club, Jason Panter of InClub Golf, Brian Kelly of Bucknell Golf Club, Greg Farrow, the veteran head pro at Deerwood Country Club, and Pete Levinguth of Applecross Country Club finished in a tie for second place, each posting a 3-over 73.
Michael Versuk, a PGA Life Member, carded a 1-over 71 to finish atop the Super Senior leaderboard. Kelly and Farrow shared runnerup honors with their 73s.
Dave Quinn of Laurel Creek Country Club finished in a tie for 12th in the Senior division with a 5-over 75.
A week earlier, though, Quinn fired a sparkling 67 to share medalist honors in a qualifier at Argyle Country Club in Silver Spring, Md. for the U.S. Senior Open. Quinn will be representing the Philadelphia Section PGA when the U.S. Senior Open tees off next Thursday at Omaha Country Club in Omaha, Neb.
It will be the second PGA Tour Champions major championship that Quinn will tee it up in this year. Quinn had earned a ticket to the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship by finishing in a tie for 16th place in last fall’s Senior PGA Professional Championship at the PGA Golf Club’s Wanamaker Course in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Quinn failed to make the cut in the Senior PGA Championship, which was held Memorial Day weekend at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., with rounds of 79 and 78. But berths in two senior majors in the same year says that Quinn still has plenty of game.
By the way, Gene Fieger, who dominated the Philadelphia Section in the mid-1990s when he was an assistant pro at Overbrook, will also be in the U.S. Senior Open field. Fieger, who calls Naples, Fla. home these days, carded a 70 in a qualifier at Crown Colony Golf & Country Club in Fort Myers, Fla. to punch his ticket to Omaha.
The Conestoga Classic was supported by Ohana Farm LLC, Jani-King and the PGA Tour.
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