You could say that the 2020 Connelly Cup Head Professional
Championship contested Tuesday at North Hills Country Club was just another
Philadelphia Section PGA event. But you would be wrong.
Because this was the first golf competition in the
Philadelphia area, junior, amateur, or professional since the coronavirus shut
down this area in mid-March. And this is the first T Mac Tees Off post that
reports results from an actual tournament since I had to bid a premature
farewell to the college golf season with a post on the Seton Hall women’s
team’s runnerup finish in the UNF Challenge, hosted by North Florida at
Jacksonville Golf & Country Club in Jacksonville, Fla.
So when my Twitter timeline delivered an alert that the
Connelly Cup was teeing off Tuesday, I was pretty excited. Probably didn’t hurt
that the rest of my Twitter timeline was bringing mostly bad news about
rioting, looting and bloodshed as the aftershocks of George Floyd’s murder continued
to erupt all over an anguished country. Yeah, it’s been a difficult couple of
months, so I’m taking the Connelly Cup Head Professional Championship as a sure
sign that things are taking a turn for the better.
Maybe it was fitting that the Philadelphia Section’s
tournament schedule teed off with an event restricted to the area’s head
professionals. I doubt any of them ever suspected that their jobs would some
day require them to check the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention website
for guidelines on how to get their members back on the golf course.
But that’s how things played out this spring. Thankfully,
golf has been one of the few sports that saw some of the stay-at-home
restrictions that have affected seemingly every non-essential activity lifted
relatively quickly. Golfers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland
were allowed, with some modifications, to get back out on the course by early
May.
Many of the Philly Section pros were understandably rusty
Tuesday with the notable exception of Hugo Mazzalupi, the 51-year-old head man
at Patriots Glen National Golf Club in Elkton, Md. who captured the title with
a sparkling 4-under-par 67 over the par-71 North Hills layout.
Needless to say, competitors were adhering to strict state
and federal regulations and guidelines, restrictions with which all the head
pros have become painfully familiar in passing them along to their memberships.
Mazzalupi, playing in the third group off on a pleasantly cloudy
spring day, birdied the second hole before giving that shot back with a bogey
at third hole. But starting with a birdie at the fourth hole, Mazzalupi played
4-under golf for the final 15 holes on his way to a four-shot victory.
After the birdie at the fourth hole, Mazzalupi rattled off
six straight pars before making three straight birdies at the 11th,
12th and 13th holes and parring out to finish at 4-under.
Lookaway Golf Club’s Michael Little, who has been one of the
Section’s top performers over the last five years, was in the first group off
Tuesday and matched par with a 71. Mazzalupi quickly passed him, but Little’s
solid showing held up for runnerup honors.
John Pillar, the director of golf at the Country Club at
Woodloch Springs, and Josef Pohle of Blue Bell Country Club shared third place,
each posting a 1-over 72 to finish a shot behind Little. Pillar is the reigning
winner of the Philadelphia Senior PGA Professional Championship, capturing that
title last summer at Applebrook Golf Club.
Overbrook Golf Club’s Eric Kennedy, Rolling Green Golf Club’s
Scott Chisholm and Deerfield’s Michael Tobiason finished in a tie for fifth
place, each carding a 2-over 73.
Rounding out the top 10 were three more players – Bob Hennefer
of Indian Spring Country Club, George Frake of the Moorestown Field Club and William
Scarborough of The Peninsula Golf & Country Club – all of whom finished in
a tie for eighth place at 3-over 74.
The ageless Stu Ingraham, the instructor at the M Golf Range
and Learning Center in Newtown Square, and Travis Deibert of Doylestown Country
Club, finished in a tie for 11th place, each signing for a 4-over
75.
Applebrook’s head pro Dave McNabb is another member of the
Section’s super seniors and one of its top players of any age, headed a group
of four players tied for 13th place at 5-over 76. McNabb was joined
at that figure by Benjamin Debski of The Springhaven Club, Thomas Michaels of
Berkshire Country Club and David Pagett of Whitemarsh Valley Country Club.
The Connelly Cup is named for Jack Connelly, a legendary
head pro in the Section, including a long tenure as the head pro at Huntingdon
Valley Country Club. Connelly is a past president of the Philadelphia Section in
1983-’84 and has long had a voice at the national level in the PGA of America,
including a year as its president in 2001-’02.
The Connelly Cup Head Professional Championship was
supported by Bushnell Golf, Earth Networks, NFP Hole-in-One U.S.A., Pukka Inc.,
SCNS Sports Foods and the PGA Tour.
And it’s just awesome to have some competitive golf back.
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