Ballo keeps emotions in check, defends title
HAMDEN — Peter Ballo didn’t have an easy time keeping his emotions in check this week at the Connecticut Open golf championship. It’s easy to understand why.
Ballo is less than four months removed from losing his father, Mike, the longtime head golf pro at Woodway Country Club in Darien. Playing golf has not been a priority for the assistant pro at the Connecticut Golf Club in Easton during these past few months.
But this week, Ballo was able to work his way into contention over the first 2 1⁄2 rounds, then put together a fine back nine Wednesday to win the 88th Connecticut Open championship at New Haven CC by 3 shots.
“There was definitely someone else that was there watching me and taking care of me to make me feel a little easier for sure,” Ballo said.
Ballo was able to win the 87th Connecticut Open at CC of Darien last year. His father was still alive then, but unable to attend the final round. Peter shot a final-round 66 to win a year ago and become part of the first father-son combo to win the Connecticut Open.
Ballo shot another finalround 66 on Wednesday to finish with a 54-hole total of 7-under 203, good enough to beat Brett Stegmaier (New Haven CC), Matt Shubley (Great River GC) and Jason Thresher (West Suffield) by 3 shots. He becomes the first golfer since Nick Cook to successfully defend the Connecticut
Open championship.
Cook, a Shelton native, won back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006.
Mike Ballo, who died on April 3, also won a pair of Connecticut Open titles — the first coming in 1969 at the same venue, New Haven CC.
“With the last year with these two wins, the way it’s been with the passing of my father, the struggles that I have had so far this year in playing, to be able to gather myself this week,
which is probably the hardest week since April, to be able to do this, I’m kind of speechless,” Peter Ballo said.
Mike Ballo was inducted
into the Connecticut Golf Hall of Fame four months before he died this past April.
Another pair of former champions, Cody Paladino (2015) and Max Theodorakis (2020) , both shot 1-over-par 71s to tie for fifth place at 207. Adam Rainaud,
the head pro at CC of New Canaan and the 2016 Open winner, tied for seventh at 2-under 208.