Caliendo Winter Golf League Celebrates 53rd Season
Every Thursday from October 31 through April 3, these hearty golfers tee it up on courses throughout New Jersey, providing there is no snow cover or otherwise impossible elements to deal with.
The cast of 165 includes 30 professionals who elect to stay home for the winter and 135 top amateurs and compete each week in the John Caliendo Shore Winter Golf League, now in its 53rd season. The membership fee is $100 for new golfers and $75 for repeaters. For greens fees each week, pros pay $70 and amateurs $40, but the pros play for a top prize of $200 per outing and then compete in a year-end championship with as much as $1,100 at stake, which is what Joe Galan of Fiddler’s Elbow won last April.
The Player of the Year Award, based on accumulating points, adds $150 to what a pro has already won in the course of the season. The 2012-13 Player of the Year, Ken Pridgen of Suneagles, took home a total of $2,150 in earnings. Amateurs can earn gross or net season honors for pro shop gift certificates.
The league was founded by Angelo Petraglia of Spring Meadow, John Cafone of Manasquan River, Andy Sikora of Beacon Hill and Roddy Newman of Homestead and originally called the Jersey Shore Winter Golf League.
Later, it was renamed for John Caliendo, a former Long Branch postal worker who ran the tournaments and computed the handicaps until 1985.
CALIENDO WINTER LEAGUE WEBSITE VIEW PHOTO GALLERY
“It gives us something to look forward to each winter,” said pro Joe Ginger of Brick, now in his 39th season in the Caliendo League. “My foursome has been together for 15 years.”
While the players are pretty much bundled up from head to toe, the best of them still shoot around par. Of course, when the venues are frozen over, the golf balls pick up a lot more distance, too.
“I’ve been retired 20 years. The weather doesn’t both me,” said amateur Dan Price of Passaic County, now in his 15thyear. “I’ve played in blizzards, ice storms, freezing rain, you name it. “
“It gives us a chance to play courses we wouldn’t otherwise play,” Gary Naylor of Hominy Hill said. Naylor plastic wraps his cart and installs a fan heater inside it which is powered by propane gas. “The best thing about the league is that it’s well organized.”
For pro Marty Vybihal, he gets to keep a family tradition going. His father, John, who worked at Stanton Ridge, introduced him to Caliendo Winter Golf League. And he plays with Pridgen, someone he grew up with and played with on the North Hunterdon High School golf team.
League director Marc O’Such, an assistant pro at Fairway Mews, makes sure early each week that the course scheduled for the following Thursday is deemed playable. If not, Brigantine Golf Links becomes a failsafe. Usually, winds off the bay there in Atlantic County keep the course clear of snow.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t get cold there.
“Last year at Brigantine it was 15 degrees when we started and the wind was blowing at 20 miles per hour with a minus-five wind chill,” O’Such recalled. “But we still had 65 guys showing up.”
This season’s list of courses include Rock Spring and Forest Hill in Essex County, Suburban, Shackamaxon and Echo Lake in Union County, Copper Hill, Stanton Ridge, and Heron Glen and Hawk Pointe in West Jersey, Fiddler’s Elbow, Forsgate, Rossmoor, Concordia, and many courses in Monmouth, Ocean and Atlantic counties such as Deal, Jumping Brook, Suneagles, Knob Hill, Greenacres, Renault Winery, Atlantic City and Sea Oaks.
John Sonatore of Union County has played in all 53 seasons of the Caliendo Winter Golf League dating back to 1961-62.
This year’s lineup of players includes former State Open winners Mark McCormick of Suburban and Baker Maddera of Rock Spring.
“We went to Sea Oaks last year and it didn’t snow anywhere there. But we were saved when the maintenance guys came out with their blowers to make the greens puttable,” O’Such said.
