NJSGA Third In Senior Challenge Matches At Manasquan River
An eight-man team representing the New Jersey State Golf Association had to settle for third place in seeking its first victory since 2003 in the 26th Senior Challenge Matches on Thursday (Oct. 2) at Manasquan River Golf Club in Brielle.
The Senior Challenge Matches include eight seniors from golf associations representing New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Philadelphia. All golfers take part in 18 holes of stroke-play competition with the top six scores from each team counting toward the team total. Maryland (443) won by two strokes over Golf Association of Philadelphia (445) with New Jersey third (452) and Dealware foruth (466).
New Jersey’s team was comprised of Jay Blumenfeld of Mountain Ridge, Billy Charpek of Navesink, Tom Hyland of Little Mill, Adam Kugler of Alpine, Dan Levinson of Bayonne, Bill Snouffer of Panther Valley, Jon Tingley of Stanton Ridge and Ron Vannelli of Forsgate.
Blumenfeld and Tingley led New Jersey with even-par 72s, followed by Snouffer and Hyland with 76, Kugler with 77, Vannelli with 79, Charpek with 82 and Levinson with 84. Chris Clausen of GAP led all scorers with a 2-under 70.Marty West led Maryland with a 72 while Mike Kelly, Bobby Morris and Mike Occi all added 74s. Occi, who grew up in Cranford, N.J., is fomer NJSGA Junior champion.
"It's like Ryder Cup. You have to play better than the other teams," Blumenfeld said. "I'm not happy. I'm surprised that we didn't do better. We had a very good team. The course was beautiful. The course can be difficult when it's windy. It was a lot wetter than I thought it would be."
New Jersey last won in 2003 in the second of back-to-back victories at Delaware National G.C. In 2002, . New Jersey won at Hamilton Farm in Gladstone, N.J. New Jersey also was victorious in 1996 at Sunnybrook G.C. in Pennsylvania.
A year ago, the Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP) edged Maryland in a tiebreaker . Both teams finished at 439, prompting a seventh score to serve as a tiebreaker.
GAP was won 13 times, followed by Maryland with nine, NJSGA with three and Delaware with one triumph.
This year, Blumenfeld won the State Senior Amateur championship; Charpek was T3 at the Senior Amateur; Hyland qualified for the U.S. Senior Amateur ; Kugler won the Met Senior Open and qualified for the U.S. Senior Amateur;; Levinson was low amateur at the State Senior Open for the second straight year; Snouffer was T3 at the Senior Amateur ; Tingley was T3 at the Senior Amateur and Vannelli won the Met Masters Tournament.
