Mazzalupi takes Connelly Cup Head Professional Championship as competitive golf finally returns

   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 11^th, 12^th and 13^th 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 11^th 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 13^th 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.