NYSGA News

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Former NYSGA Junior Champion Dominic Bozzelli fired a two-day total of four-under par at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Course in Ithaca to become only the third repeat NYSPHSAA champion. Bozzelli’s two-day total of 140 matches his score from the 2007 Junior Championship when he registered consecutive rounds of 70 to win the tournament.

Bozzelli carded three birdies and 15 pars on Monday for a 69 to go along with his one-under par 71 the day before. His performance was one stroke shy of recording the best showing at Cornell in the NYSPHSAA Tournament. 2007 Men’s Amateur Champion John Duthie and Mike Quagliano each shot a 139 when they competed in 2007 and 2004, respectively.

Also competing in the High School Championships were 2008 NYSGA winners Yaroslav Merkulov and Gavin Hall, who earned victories in the Junior and Boys Division Championships, respectively. Merkulov recorded the low-round of the day on Monday with a five-under par 67, giving him a 145 for the tournament which was good for second place. Meanwhile, eighth grader Gavin Hall finished in 13^th with a 152 in a field that was dominated by high school juniors and seniors.

In 3^rd place at the NYSPHSAA tournament there was a tie between two contenders from the NYSGA Junior Championship last year. Ryan Simpson and Andrew Lane both shot a +2 (146). Simpson posted the lowest score from Section II while Lane represented the third player from Section V to finish in the top four.

3-time NYSGA Girls Champion Nannette Hill, and 2003 Girls Champion Tessa Teachman are both competing this week at the NCAA Women’s Championships in Caves Valley, MD.  Hill is finishing off a solid career at Wake Forest and is tied for second after the first two rounds.  Head over to Golfstat.com for full results or click here.

David May of Auburn, NY recently was the co-medalist at the ACC Championships held at Old North State Club in New London, NC.  May, a Senior at Clemson University, shot 66 in the final round to make up a four shot deficit and get his first win as a Clemson Tiger.

May is a 2-time NYSGA Junior Champion (’02, ‘03).  Congratulations to David and best of luck in the NCAA’s!

I have had a number of conversations with people about our 2009 format changes and wanted to go a bit more into depth regarding the philosophy behind them and if we generate some good discussion, thats great.  I will address them one at a time:

1) Women’s Amateur

The Women’s Amateur is probably the event I enjoy conducting more than any other each year.  The quality of play is high and the players as a whole are fun to be around and talk with.  What puzzles me is why the field has shrunk over the years to barely 60 particpants.

In order to try and grow the field, and after numerous discussions with Betty Deeley, Tournament Chair, as well as other members of the Committee, we decided to make some drastic changes.  The first, and I think most important, is the addition of the Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship.  The field has gotten younger in the past 10 years, and over the past 20 years I believe only 3 winners came from the “Mid-Amateur” set.  We hope that with the addition of this Championship, some more players in the Mid-Am age group will return to compete this year.  We also hope that the addition of carts will bring back some players that perhaps left due to the mandatory policy for walking.

Finally, the change to stroke play was necessary with the addition of the Mid-Amateur Championship.  There was no way to run these events concurrently without making this change, unless we made players decide prior to the Championship which competition to participate in, which made no sense.  We hope that these changes will increase the size of the field and return this Championship to the popularity it enjoyed 30 years ago.

2)  Men’s Amateur

Stroke play was a staple of the Men’s Amateur in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and was abandoned in 1991 to mirror the US Amateur Championship format.  The Championship has been successful in both formats…it was not participation that necessitated the change.

The fact is the golf economy, as you well know, has changed…and not for the better.  Golf facilities are under immense pressure from their memberships to increase revenue and we live in a region where the golf season is a short 6 months, tops.  Members want, and deserve, to play their golf course when they wish.

The Men’s Amateur Championship, in its previous form, was simply too long.  A host facility knew when taking the Championship that we would be on-site for 6 days, disrupting their membership.  On top of this, the course was taking the Championship, gratis, to give back to the game.  The difficulty we have had with securing a host for this Championship has been a huge burden and we are faced with 2 sobering choices.  One - pay the clubs a per round fee (and greatly raise entry fees to pay for it) or Two - shorten the event, by 2 days, and hope this creates far less disruption at the host facility.

We chose to shorten the event by making it stroke play and we hope that this change not only allows to continue to get great hosts, but increases both the size and quality of our Championship field.  Just look at some of the winners in the 70’s and 80’s…Allen, Sindelar, Sluman, Burns, Roy, & Zahringer, to name a few.  I don’t think you can argue with that list.

3)  Senior Men’s Amateur

While we don’t expect these changes to be as controversial, this is still a major change as the field has been made considerably smaller.  The evolution of this Championship, however, necessitated the change in my opinion.  Senior golf is far stronger and more competitive now than it ever has been.  This Championship, when started, was basically called a “clambake”…a fun event with a Championship attached to it.  Well, when 80% of the field have handicaps of 5 or below, it is easy to see that this no longer applies.  It was time to take this competition to the next level, and reward the top Seniors in the state with a truly elite field without all the pace of play issues we have had in the past that foursomes bring.  While there will be a bit of grumbling from the players that find themselves on the outside looking in, I have no doubt the overall Championship will be a far better one for everyone involved.

As always, feel free to contact me directly at (888) NYSGA-23 or by emailing me at bmoore@nysga.org with any concerns.  That is why I am here.

B-Mo

I created a Facebook group which we will keep up to date with news and notes as the season goes on.  You can find it by clicking here.

The 86th NYSGA Championship Season has come to a close, and I would just breifly like to thank a few parties.  First, I would like to thank my tournament volunteers and staff for all their hard work this summer.  Many of our volunteers travel to the championships at their own expense and we would never be able to run such fine championships without their help.  Second, I would like to thank the clubs out there who hosted our Championshpis and Qualifiers.  Their sacrifice in such a short golf season is always appreciated.  Finally, I would like to thank all the competitors.  We hope that you will come back and compete again in 2009.

Dominic Bozzelli, the 2007 NYSGA Junior Champion and the 2005 NYSGA Boys Champion, is on quite a run this week at the USGA Junior Championship at Shoal Creek in Alabama.  After warming up last week by securing Medalist honors at the NYSGA Men’s Amateur, Dominic has won 3 matches, including defeating the defending US Junior Champion and #1 nationally ranked Junior Cory Whitsett.

Bozzelli heads to the quarterfinals Friday morning.  You can follow his progress here.

Best of luck to a classy kid from all your friends at the NYSGA.

BMo

As you probably have noticed, the 86th year of NYSGA Championships has gotten underway.  We just finished our 79th Women’s Championship at Wayne Hills CC.  For those of you that haven’t made the trip, Wayne Hills is a great course that sits less than an hour from Rochester and Syracuse.  It is in immaculate shape thanks to Mike Johnson, a superintendent who was at Bethpage, and their membership, who pitch in a great deal to keep their course in wonderful shape.  Thanks to them both the Association and the Players had a great week and for the third time in 5 years Christy Schultz was crowned champion.  She is a great player and an even classier person, and we are lucky to have her as our champion.

This week we head to the 86th Men’s Amateur at Pinehaven CC in Guilderland, outside of Albany.  Pinehaven is a solid track and a “thinking-man’s” golf course with tight, tree lined fairways and fast, undulating putting surfaces.  Pinehaven has made some changes since they hosted the Men’s Amateur in 1998 and we are looking forward to being back.

Finally, I would like to bring your attention to our increased coverage of our events this year here in NYSGA.org and hope you will visit often.  For the first time we hired an additional intern named John Cronly who will be covering each Championship from beginning to end.  I hope you enjoyed the Women’s Amateur coverage and look for more of the same this week at Pinehaven.  We are looking forward to another great week.

As I look at the qualifying numbers for the NYSGA Junior & Boys Championships, I can’t help but wonder: What has happened to this Championship?  Only 20 years ago, when I first tried to qualify, there must have been well over 300 entrants in the qualifying field.  We have been fortunate to have a long list of champions that have gone on to Division I Golf and even successful PGA Tour careers.  The current field is a strong one…led by defending champion Dominic Bozzelli and runner-up Yaroslav Merkulov, but I can’t help but wonder why every junior golfer in the state doesn’t want to participate in our state championship.

Is it the fact there are more junior events statewide than ever before?  Is it the cost of traveling to the championship site?  I would be interested to hear your thoughts as my #1 priority is to grow this field and make it the championship it deserves to be.

BMo