At some point this summer, Mike Little became the head pro at Lookaway Golf Club after being an assistant there for several years.
And for Little, and every club pro in America, the spring had been as stressful a time as anyone could possibly imagine. Golf courses were closed down in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic before cautiously reopening in April with staff trying to grapple with all sorts of protocols being handed down at both the state and local levels.
Golfers were playing one to a cart and many used to taking a caddy were carrying their own clubs. There were no rakes in bunkers and flags being left in holes that had donuts in them to keep the ball from going to the bottom of the cup. Slowly but surely, though, golf came back in a big way. Turned out it was one of the few things you could do safely in a pandemic.
A Philadelphia Section PGA tournament schedule started to come together in June and the club pros were able to breathe a sigh of relief and get back to competing. It had to be a relief to Little when it became obvious that golf wouldn’t just survive the pandemic, but thrive. And then he was promoted to head pro at Lookaway.
And then Little’s season suddenly took off. He has been one of the best players in a very competitive Philadelphia Section for a while. In 2016 Little was the Section’s Omega Player of the Year. Four years later, Little is the 2020 Omega Player of the Year and winner of the DeBaufre Scoring Average title as well.
Little teed it up in 11 Omega points standings events, winning twice and piling up 4,017.83 points, giving him a comfortable margin in the Player of the Year points race over Bidermann Golf Club instructor Zac Oakley, who also won twice in 11 events and finished with 3,596.58 points. Little was just a bit more consistent.
Little really made his move in the final weeks of August when he went back-to-back with victories in the William Hyndman III Memorial Classic at Huntingdon Valley Country Club and in the TaylorMade Classic at White Manor Country Club.
Little defeated Applebrook Golf Club head pro Dave McNabb – the Section’s Robert “Skee” Riegel Senior Player of the Year in 2020, more on that later – in a playoff at Huntingdon Valley after each carded a 1-under 69 on the challenging William Flynn classic. Little had lost the Hyndman Classic in a playoff twice before, so there was something a little redemptive about that win.
Then he fired a 4-under 67 at White Manor to win the TaylorMade.
Little finished in a tie for fifth place, a group that included Oakley, in the Philadelphia PGA Professional Championship in September at Bent Creek Country Club and the Country Club of York. Alex Knoll of Glen Brook Golf Club, the 2019 Omega Player of the Year, repeated in the Philadelphia PGA Professional Championship.
But Little’s solid showing earned him a trip to next spring’s PGA Professional Championship at the PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla.
And while Little’s victory in the rescheduled Philadelphia Open in October at Doylestown Country Club, didn’t count in the Omega points standings, it was the icing on a pretty successful 2020, both in rising to head pro at the same course where he had served an apprenticeship and in finishing on top of the heap, once again, on the Philadelphia Section circuit.
For my money, the Philadelphia Open, staged by the Golf Association of Philadelphia, is the most talented field assembled in the region each year with GAP’s best amateurs competing alongside the top Philadelphia Section PGA club pros.
Little reached the putting surface at the risk-reward par-5 18th hole at Doylestown and two-putted for a birdie that gave him a one-shot edge on Knoll and the Philly Open crown.
Trevor Bensel, the talented assistant pro at Overbrook Golf Club, finished third in the Omega Player of the Year points race as he also won twice in 10 starts and amassed 3,307.75 points.
Knoll had only one win, but it was a big one as he repeated in the Philadelphia PGA Professional Championship, the Section’s premier event, in 10 starts and finished fourth in the Omega points race with 2,886.58 points.
Consistency was also the key for Little finishing first in the DeBaufre Scoring Average race. Little very nearly broke 70 with his scoring average of 70.17 while Bensel was the runnerup with a 70.45 average.
Brett Walker, an assistant pro at Sunnybrook Golf Club, was third with a 70.71 average and veteran Spring Ford Country Club head pro Rich Steinmetz was his steady self all season, finishing third in the DeBaufre chase with a 70.92 average.
McNabb prevailed in a pretty tight battle with Dave Quinn of Laurel Creek Country Club to earn the Robert “Skee” Riegel Senior Player of the Year award.
McNabb had three wins in nine starts while piling up 2,509.64 points while Quinn also won three times in eight starts to earn runnerup honors with 2,371.25 points.
McNabb came up just short in the Philadelphia Senior PGA Professional Championship at Concord Country Club, falling in a playoff as John Pillar, the director of golf at the Country Club at Woodloch Springs, successfully defended his title.
That victory enabled Pillar to finish third in the Senior Player of the Year race as he registered one other win in seven total starts and ended up with 2,180 points.
McNabb, Quinn and Pillar advanced to the 32nd Senior PGA Professional Championship in October at the PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla. and all three punched their ticket to next spring’s KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship, a PGA Tour Champions major which will be staged at Southern Hills Country Club, which has hosted three U.S. Opens and four PGA Championships, in Tulsa, Okla.
McNabb and Quinn both landed among the group tied for 16th place and Pillar was among the group tied for 24th in Port St. Lucie. The top 35 finishers in the Senior PGA Professional Championship earned a berth in next May’s Senior PGA Championship.
Pillar, by the way, was recently elected the PGA of America’s District 2 Director, representing the Philadelphia, Metropolitan and New Jersey sections on the PGA’s Board of Directors.
The respective 1-2 finishers in the Super Senior Player of the Year race, Greg Farrow, the head pro at Deerwood Country Club, and George Forster, the head pro at Radnor Valley Country Club, finished fourth and fifth, respectively, in the Senior Player of the Year points standings as well.
Farrow had contended in the Philadelphia Senior PGA Professional Championship at Concord before finishing in third place, two shots out of the Pillar-McNabb playoff. He had two wins in 10 Senior division starts for 1,523 points. Forster had 10 Senior division starts and finished with 1,094 points.
Farrow dominated in the Super Senior division with five wins in eight starts as he cruised to Player of the Year honors with 2,929.5 points. Forster was the runnerup with one win in eight Super Senior starts as he ended up with 1,602.17 points.
Forster didn’t advance out of the PGA Senior PGA Professional Championship at the PGA Golf Club to the Senior PGA Championship, but he did survive two cuts and played four rounds, a pretty nice accomplishment for a Super Senior competitor.
Bob Lemon of Wilmington Country Club finished third in the Super Senior Player of the Year race as he had three wins in eight starts and piled up 1,506.5 points.
Bensel, who finished third in the Omega Player of the Year race, was the runnerup in the Philadelphia Assistants Organization’s Player of the Year standings to his colleague in the Overbrook pro shop, Ashley Grier, the Philadelphia Section’s top female player.
Grier had one win in 10 PAO starts and finished with 1,353.92 points. Bensel had one win in seven starts and ended up with 1,107.5 points to earn runnerup honors.
Grier and Bensel were two of the players who finished in a tie for second in the National Car Rental Philadelphia Assistant PGA Professional Championship at St. Davids Golf Club behind Deerfield's Mike Tobiason in August. The two Overbrook pros qualified for a trip to the NCR Assistant PGA Professional Championship at the PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie Fla., which was held last month.
Bensel did not make the trip to Port St. Lucie, but Grier was the only member of the Philadelphia Section PGA contingent who survived the 36-hole cut and played the weekend. Grier ended up in a tie for 34th place, the second-best finish among the three women who teed it up at the PGA Golf Club.
Brian Bergstol, the talented assistant at the Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort, finished third in the PAO Player of the Year race as he won once in eight starts and ended up with 819.8 points.
Also, last month the Philadelphia Section PGA announced the enshrinement of long-time Burlington Country Club head pro Mike Mack and the late Robert Thompson “Bob” Barnett Jr., the Section’s first president, into its Hall of Fame.
As the head pro at Burlington for more than 39 years, Mack belongs to South Jersey now. But when I first started writing an early version of this very blog, “From Tee to Green,” a weekly golf column that first appeared in The Mercury in Pottstown 40 years or so ago, I always tried to note the high finishes of Mike Mack, the Pottsgrove graduate, in Philadelphia Section events.
Mack turned pro in 1977 and became a PGA of America member in 1981, right about the time he became the head pro at Burlington. He made stops at West Chester Golf & Country Club, Kennett Square Golf & Country Club and Brookside Country Club in Pottstown as an assistant before taking over as the head pro at Burlington. He was named the Philadelphia PGA Golf Professional of the Year in 1999 and served as the Philadelphia Section’s president in 2000 and 2001.
The Burlington Classic Mack started in 1986 remains one of the most popular stops on the Section’s tournament calendar each year.
“I’m honored to be mentioned in the same breath as legendary PGA members like Dick Smith Sr., Pete Trenham, Jack Connelly, Ed Dougherty, Art Wall and the like,” Mack told the Philadelphia Section PGA website. “I am thankful to the Hall of Fame Committee and to those who nominated me, Bob Hennefer and Curtis Kirkpatrick. I’m very fortunate to be part of the best Section in the nation, the Philadelphia PGA.”
As somebody who got a chance to observe the Pottstown scene for 15 years, it is not a surprise that its sports community produced a club pro the caliber of Mack.
Barnett was the young head pro at long-gone Tredyffrin Country Club in Paoli when he was named the Philadelphia Section PGA’s first president when the organization was formally established Dec. 2, 1921. Hmm, looks like the Philly Section has a pretty significant birthday coming up around this time next year.
Barnett moved on to become the head pro at the Chevy Chase Club in Maryland and was one of the founders of the Middle Atlantic PGA Section, becoming its second president in 1925.
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