Malvern Prep grad captures PA Open

SPRINGFIELD » Billy Stewart is in a very good place as a professional golfer.

It was evident with the way Stewart, an assistant pro at The ACE Club, managed his game during the final round of the Allegheny Health Network Pennsylvania Open Wednesday, grabbing the lead halfway through and protecting it all the way to the house at Rolling Green G.C.

The result was a 3-under 68 over the 6,941-yard William Flynn gem for a 54hole total of 8-under 205 that gave him a one-shot margin of victory. Stu Ingraham, an instructor at the M Golf Range in Newtown Square, tied for second with hard-charging Kyle Sterbinsky, a Yardley resident and recent Peddie School graduate who is headed for Wake Forest. The victory was worth $8,000 to Stewart.

Ingraham, who held a two-shot lead entering the final round, carded an evenpar 71 and battled Stewart down to the final putt. Sterbinsky, finishing well ahead of the leaders, fired a brilliant 7-under 64.

“I thought my way around the golf course really well,” said Stewart, who burst onto the local golf scene when he won the 2002 Philadelphia Amateur championship a few weeks after graduating from Malvern Prep. “This is a big win for me. I’m at peace with myself as a professional golfer.

“I’m at a great club and I’m teaching the game. I get to play tournament golf in a great Section. I’m at my happiest, my most focused. I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing.”

He is also capable of coming up with a great shot when he absolutely needs one. Standing on the tee at the reachable-in-two, par-5 17th hole, Stewart was tied with Sterbinsky at 7-under, one ahead of his playing partner Ingraham.

He snap-hooked his drive and ended up among some small trees behind the 16th tee. No problem.

“I had 205 (yards) to the hole and it was uphill,” Stewart said. “I had a 3-iron, but then I went to the hybrid because I needed to slice it around the one tree. It couldn’t have come out any better.”

It landed softly on the green and settled 20 feet from the hole. Instead of hustling to make birdie, Stewart was staring at a putt for eagle. He came up just short, but the two-putt birdie gave him his final margin of victory.

Ingraham, who won this event in 1998, kept the pressure on right to the end. He missed a six-foot birdie putt on 17 after blasting out of a greenside bunker and trailed Stewart by two heading to the last.

Ingraham reached the par-5 18th in two and had a good look at an eagle that could have tied him with Stewart, but the putt came up two rolls short.

Meanwhile, Stewart pushed his drive between two bunkers on the right side at 18, hit his hybrid into a greenside bunker and blasted out. His 25-foot birdie try came up three feet short. By then, he knew he just needed par to win and he got it.

Trailing Ingraham by two at the beginning of the day, Stewart took control of the tournament with three straight birdies at six, seven and eight.

He rolled in a 20-footer for birdie at six, reached the par-5 seventh in two and two-putted for birdie and rolled in a 25-footer for birdie at eight.

“I knew I was probably leading at that point, so I just wanted to play steady golf the rest of the way and hold onto the lead,” said Stewart, who grew up playing the game at Llanerch C.C. “I still had to make a three-footer at the end to win it.”

Ingraham had to take a penalty at the eighth when a rules official said Ingraham’s ball moved when he removed a twig after hitting it under a tree at the par-4 hole.

“I didn’t see it, but he said the ball moved, so it was a one-shot penalty,” Ingraham said. “I made a 12-footer for bogey on the hole, so that helped put it behind me pretty quickly.”

Stewart had reached 8-under with his birdie at eight, but gave a shot back when a six-foot par putt at the 13th burned the edge and stayed out. He had nice birdie looks at 14 and 15 that didn’t fall. But it was that second shot at 17 that won him the golf tournament.

“Billy’s a grinder,” Ingraham said. “He’s a good thinker out there. He thinks to win.”

Ingraham, the Philadelphia Section Player of the Year as recently as 2012, gave himself a heck of a chance to win a second Pennsylvania Open title.

“I’ve had a lot of physical problems this year and at 55, to shoot 7-under and have a chance to win the state Open, it’s been a great week for me,” Ingraham said.

Ingraham was happy for Stewart and gave him a big hug when Stewart’s par putt fell in on the 18th green. When Stewart returned to the area after nearly a decade playing the mini-tours in Florida, Ingraham’s voice was one he sought as he looked for advice on breaking in as a club pro in the Philadelphia Section.

“I look up to Stu and he and all the guys in the Philadelphia Section have been great to me,” Stewart said. “We played a round of golf and I sat down with him for an hour-and-a-half and he opened my eyes to a lot of things. You’d have to be foolish not to listen to a guy who has accomplished as much in this game as he has.”