Strong field expected for Senior Metropolitan Championship
Miami Valley Golf Club will host the Senior Metropolitan and Mid-Amateur Championships on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Senior championship will have a strong field that includes Dan Devore of Butler County, who will be seeking his third straight championship.
The 62-year-old roofing contractor will get some strong opposition. The field includes three-time champ Tim Sorrows of Liberty Township and past champions Tal Selby of Middletown and Dave Larger of Piqua.
Other possible contenders are: Pete Betzold, Rick Cherubini, Curt Cranmer, Ron Eubel, Doug Gage, Dave Novotny, Pete Samborsky and Jeff Scohy.
The Mid-Amateur competition is wide open as Brady Marinangeli, who won the title last year, has moved out of the area and will not be entered.
The Mid-Am is for ages 25-49 and the Senior has separate competitions for players in age groups 50-64, 65-74 and 75 and older.
Contestants must be at least 25 years old on the first day of competition and live or play golf in the following counties: Auglaize, Butler, Champaign, Clark, Clinton, Darke, Greene, Montgomery, Preble, Shelby and Warren.
Sugar Valley observes 50th anniversary
Sugar Valley Golf Club is celebrating its 50th anniversary this weekend. Members gathered for a 1960s-themed party Saturday. Those in attendance were to pose for a group photograph and participate in a Speed Golf activity in which they were timed collectively to see how fast the group could play 18 holes.
Formerly known as Sugar Valley Country Club, it was formed in 1968 but its golf course wasn’t finished until 1970. The course was designed in 1967 by Geoffrey Cornish of Amherst, Mass., and remodeled by Ohioans Jack Kidwell and Mike Hurdzan in the 1980s.
Chip Shots
The fourth annual Dayton Freight-Doug Cartwright Scholarship Pro-Am will be held at Sugar Valley on Thursday. It recognizes Cartwright’s years of service to the club and raises funds for youth scholarships.
Piqua Country Club is the defending champion and the host for the 2018 Miami Valley Team Invitational on Sept. 13. Members of Piqua’s winning team at Sugar Valley in 2017 were Andy Arp, Kasey Carter, Tom Christy, Mike Curtis, Darrin Grove, Phil Kazer, Dave Larger and Chad Sherril.
Scohy has a comfortable lead in points for the 2018 Player of the Year award, and Ron Eubel is leading the senior division.
After posting a respectable 76 in the first round of medal play at the U.S. Senior Amateur Championship in Eugene, Ore., last weekend, Ron Eubel shot 81 in the second round and was eliminated. If Eubel had duplicated that 76 in the second round, he would have been in the playoff at 152.
Eubel’s two playing partners, Mike McCoy of Des Moines, Iowa, and David West of Oxford, Pa., made it into match play. McCoy, who qualified at Moraine Country Club for the 2011 U.S. Amateur, shot 77-71 and won four matches before losing in the semifinals. West, who shot 77-75, was eliminated in the first round of match play.
The deadline to enter either the City of Dayton men’s stroke play championship or the senior men’s stroke play championship is Friday. The tournaments will be held Sept. 15-16 at Kitttyhawk Golf Center.