JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – Above the past 68 events the Sunnehanna Newbie Tournament for Champions has happened, its popularity all over the golfing earth has only developed.
This coming Wednesday starts a new chapter at one particular of the leading amateur golfing tournaments in the place.
A 7-event gauntlet called the Elite Beginner Golfing Sequence kicks off at Sunnehanna Place Club.
“It’s great for the club,” Sunnehanna Beginner Co-Chairman John Yerger mentioned. “This remaining the 1st tournament in the Elite Newbie Golfing Collection, which is definitely heading to be a significant offer within amateur golfing, and unquestionably heading to be followed not across the country, but in a ton of elements, throughout the earth. It’s a huge, large deal.”
The Elite Beginner Golfing Sequence will attribute a summer months-extensive competitiveness – the Elite Amateur Cup. Applying the 7 collection function results from the Globe Novice Golfing Ranking (WAGR) as the Elite Amateur Cup issue technique, top finishers in the closing standings will receive exemptions into the PGA Tour, the Korn Ferry Tour, USGA Championships and other expert enjoying possibilities.
The first PGA Tour function to assist the EAGS and offer an exemption to the Elite Beginner Cup winner is the Butterfield Bermuda Championship for their function in Oct.
The six other tournaments in the Elite Amateur Golf Sequence include the Northeast Beginner (June 22-25 Wannamoisett Nation Club Rumford, Rhode Island) North and South Newbie (June 26-July 2 Pinehurst Vacation resort & Country Club, Pinehurst, North Carolina) Trans-Mississippi Newbie (July 6-9 Denver Country Club, Denver, Colorado) Southern Beginner (July 13-16 Sea Island Golf Club, St. Simons Island, Georgia) Pacific Coast Novice (July 19-22 Columbia Edgewater State Club, Portland, Oregon) and Western Newbie (Aug. 1-6 Exmoor Region Club, Highland Park, Illinois).
Above Sunnehanna’s large record, 44 contestants have won 96 majors with 38 of all those championships coming given that 2000. Phil Mickelson, Collin Morikawa, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods are a handful of players that have performed at Sunnehanna around the past 9 decades, heading again to the invitational that begun in 1936.
This year’s area for the 4-working day function is numbered at 101. A crop of common names alongside with some contemporary faces must give the event a solid blend of new and outdated.
“Palmer Jackson, who concluded fourth previous 12 months, he’s from Murrysville,” Yerger described the area.
“He gained the (2022) Jones Cup. Preston Summerhays is naturally the outstanding name that’s returning. He gained the match in 2020.
“He’s an fantastic younger player. He was Pac-12 Freshman of the Year (at Arizona Point out).
“His family’s standing inside of gold speaks for alone. They are golfing royalty. We’re energized to have him back.
“Overall, it is sort of a new field in quite a few respects. We dropped Travis Vick, who finished runner-up and third the past two decades, to the U.S. Open. We have a large amount of new faces. We’re fired up to see yet another winner.”
Summerhays’ father, Boyd Summerhays, played in the 1997 Sunnehanna Novice. Boyd Summerhays was a 3-time Junior Entire world Champion and a four-time AJGA All-American who played at Oklahoma State and was on the PGA Tour. He now is a coach.
Nick Gabrelcik, a 2021 semifinalist at the U.S. Beginner at Oakmont Place Club, and Nathan Smith, captain of the 2025 U.S. Walker Cup crew, are slated to play at Sunnehanna as properly.
There will be 105 gamers from 21 different states competing for six spots in Sunday’s qualifier. Outstanding names in the discipline include neighborhood products Derek Hayes, a 4-time Metropolis Golfing Championship winner, and Paul Pentz. Sean Karl Dobson, a soaring freshman at Stanford, 2020 Sunnehanna competitor Gregor Meyer and 2021 Pennsylvania Novice winner John Peters are major names to stick to as very well.
Though numerous traditions have stayed the identical at Sunnehanna, a new scoreboard will be put in on the class to keep up to date in the consistent arms race.
“You’re going to see an LED (mild-emitting diode), digital scoreboard behind the 16th hole, which I imagine is heading to be an appealing addition that you usually see at qualified situations,” Yerger stated.
Yerger was brief to stage out the event would not be doable without the need of the enable of all over 130 volunteers.
“We’re the only match within the Elite Newbie Golfing Sequence that is operate exclusively by volunteers,” Yerger claimed. “I imagine the a person issue we all want to definitely emphasize is the event wouldn’t be continued with out the help of Johnstown. Ninety-5 % of our volunteers appear from exterior of this club. Thirty-five p.c of our housing comes from outside of this club. The bottom line is due to the fact of the generosity of the individuals that reside in this article, we’re able to continue on a wonderful golfing tradition that every person usually takes delight in.”
Commencing Wednesday, the tournament is free of charge and open to the community.
The club’s hospitality keeps golfers seeking to arrive back.
“The gamers and their households rave about the expertise,” Yerger explained. “The friendliness, about how things are carried out, about how men and women are addressed. It sets us aside from everybody else.”
Jake Oswalt is a duplicate editor for The Tribune-Democrat. Follow him on Twitter @TheWizOfOz11.