Oakley makes it two straight Philadelphia Section Omega points wins by taking Doylestown Open crown in a playoff

   Zac Oakley, an instructor at Bidermann Golf Club, prevailed on the first hole of a three-man playoff Friday to capture his second Philadelphia Section PGA Omega Points tournament victory in eight days, claiming a win in the Doylestown Open Friday at Doylestown Country Club.

   Oakley made a birdie on the 520-yard, par-5 finishing hole at Doylestown to complete a 4-under-par 68 and join Alex Knoll, an instructor at Glen Brook Golf Club and the reigning Philadelphia Section Omega Player of the Year, and Laurel Creek Country Club’s Dave Quinn, one of the Section’s many talented senior players atop the leaderboard.

   Oakley had survived a seven-hole playoff with Overbrook Golf Club Trevor Bensel July 23 to capture the title in the GALV Lehigh Valley Open at Northampton Country Club.

   Oakley rattled off birdies at the eighth, ninth and 10^th holes to get it to 3-under for the day at Doylestown. Things got a little bumpy on the back nine as he bogeyed the 11^th hole, birdied the 13^th and bogeyed the 14^th to fall back to 2-under.

   But he got it back to 3-under with a birdie at the 16^th hole and elbowed his way into the playoff with his closing birdie at the last.

   It was a nice tuneup for Knoll, who will represent the Philadelphia Section and club pros generally when the PGA Championship tees off this week at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco. More on how all that played out in the crazy coronavirus year that is 2020 in a bit.

   Bensel, who will defend his Philadelphia Assistant PGA Professional Championship crown Monday at St. Davids Golf Club, and his fellow Overbrook assistant pro, Ashley Grier, the Philadelphia Section’s top female player, were among four players tied for fourth place at 3-under 69.

   Bensel and Grier were joined at that figure by Brian Bergstol, an assistant pro at the Shawnee Inn & Golf Resort, and Curtis Kirkpatrick, the head pro at Indian Spring Country Club.

   Greg Farrow, the veteran head pro at Deerwood Country Club, and Stephen Sieracki, another entry out of the Bidermann pro shop, shared eighth place, each posting a 2-under 70.

   A little local knowledge was evident among the three players tied for 10^th place at 1-under 71 as a Doylestown member, Sean Ebert, who starred scholastically at Central Bucks West and collegiately at Millersville, earned low-amateur honors and Doylestown’s head pro Travis Deibert also got it in red figures.

   Ebert and Deibert were joined at 1-under by George Frake of the Moorestown Field Club.

   Knoll had been knocking on the door of earning a spot in a PGA Championship field the last two years as he finished in a tie for 49^th place in the 2018 PGA Professional Championship at the Bayonet & Black Horse Resort on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula and ended up in a tie for 33^rd place in the 2019 National Club Pro (if it was up to me, it would still go by its old-school moniker) at Belfair’s West Course in Bluffton, S.C.

   In a normal year, the top 20 finishers in the PGA Professional Championship earn spots in the PGA Championship. But normal and 2020 are mutually exclusive.

   The PGA Professional Championship was originally scheduled to be played in April on the Fazio Foothills and Coore Crenshaw Cliffside courses at the Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin, Texas, but, of course, it was postponed.

   I wasn’t even aware that they were going to give it another try in July, but the summer surge of the coronavirus scuttled those plans.

   The PGA of America then decided to send the top 20 players from its 2019 PGA Player of the year list and Knoll, who played collegiately at Davidson College in North Carolina, earned his way to Harding Park that way.

   Knoll secured the Philadelphia Section’s Omega Player of the Year honor last summer when he won the Philadelphia PGA Professional Championship, which was held at the Union League Golf Club at Torresdale and Riverton Country Club. The win also punched his ticket for the ill-fated trip to Omni Barton Creek.

   Knoll’s brilliant opening round of 8-under 62 broke the course record of 64 that had been established by Sam Snead in 1941 at the old-school Donald Ross design at Torresdale that the Union League has taken great care to refurbish in recent years.

   So, regardless of how Knoll got to his debut at the PGA Championship, his qualifications are certainly in order.

   Quinn’s 68 did earn him top honors in the Senior division with Farrow the runnerup with his 2-under 70 and Frake taking third place with his 71.

   Farrow’s 70 did give him the top spot in the Super-Senior division. Don DeAngelis of Spring-Ford Country Club was the runnerup with a 1-under 71. Radnor Valley Country Club head pro George Forster matched par with a 72 to finish third in the 60-and-older set.

   There was another interesting story line at Doylestown as the Philadelphia Section PGA offered a spot in the field to Philadelphia Boys Junior PGA Championship winner Nicholas Ciocca.

   It was a consolation prize of sorts since, in a normal year, Ciocca, an incoming freshman at Devon Prep, would have earned a trip to the Boys Junior PGA Championship, the PGA of America’s premier national junior event, with his victory in the local tournament, which was held at Bellewood Country Club in June. But, like so many national events in 2020, the pandemic forced the Boys Junior PGA Championship to be cancelled.

   It was really an impressive victory by Ciocca, a product of the Aronimink Golf Club junior program. He beat a field of older players in a 36-hole test on a brutally hot day at Bellewood.

   So what did the kid do with his opportunity? Well, he went out there and shot 2-over 74 and was the runnerup to Ebert in the amateur division. Ciocca, who finished in a tie for 23^rd place overall, made three birdies to offset a double bogey and three bogeys.

   Third place in the amateur division went to J.T. Spina, a Pope John Paul II product who was having a pretty good sophomore season at Saint Joseph’s until the pandemic prematurely halted the 2019-’20 season in March. J.T. Spina’s 3-over 75 left him in the group tied for 28^th place overall.

Low-Spina honors, however, went to J.T. Spina’s dad John, who is an instructor in the Philadelphia Cricket Club pro shop. John Spina matched par with a 72 that left him in the group tied for 14^th place in the overall scoring and in a tie for fourth in the Senior division. Not to mention bragging rights at the dinner table.