Centerville grad breaks through with MVGA win

University and played on the golf team. Then he went out to San Francisco for awhile and worked in restaurants. When his funds ran out, he returned to Ohio, got a job and started playing golf again.

He turned professional in 2014 and moved to Palm Coast, Fla., to play in mini-tour events but didn’t have much success, so he came home again and was reinstated as an amateur a year ago.

Now he is playing golf in the mornings and working at night as bar manager at Salar, a Mediterranean restaurant in the Oregon District, where his girlfriend, Megan Shaw, is the general manager.

He is taking golf instruction from Doug Spencer in Cincinnati and he hasn’t put aside the possibility of giving professional golf a whirl again if he can make the necessary improvements in his game.

Meantime, Dan Devore became a three-time winner in the Senior Overall Division with a one-stroke margin over Emery Shumaker and Dave Novotny in the age 50-64 flight. Devore, a 61-year-old Butler County resident, had rounds of 64 and 68 in successfully defending his championship. Shumaker and Novotny had 133 totals.

Skip Snow edged Doug Gage by two strokes to win the ages 64-75 flight. Snow shot 76 and 78 for a 154 total. Gage had a pair of 78s.

Joe Reichley put together rounds of 81 and 82 for a 163 score that made him the winner by one stroke over Bruce Culpepper in the 75-and-over division.

Before enrolling at Kent State University, Miami Valley Metropolitan champion Josh Gilkison finished second in the Jordan Spieth/Under Armour Championship, an American Junior Golf Association event in Dallas.

He had a 5-under-par score of 175 for 45 holes. The winner, Charles Osborne of Reno, Nev., shot 170.