By Mike Blum
Georgia’s PGA professionals will be competing for spots in the national PGA championships for the nation’s club pros, with the seniors playing this month at Pinetree CC and the PNC qualifier set for Oct. 1-2 at the Standard Club.
The Georgia PGA PNC will determine which players from the Section qualify for the 2013 PGA PNC, which returns to Oregon’s Sunriver Resort.
The Georgia PGA Senior PNC, which was played Sept. 10-11, is the qualifier for the PGA Senior PNC, which is scheduled for Oct. 11-14 in Leesburg, Va.
A strong, deep field will tee it up at the Standard Club for seven spots in the 2013 PGA PNC. Georgia will have nine Section members in next year’s PNC, with Bill Murchison exempt after his top-10 showing in the 2012 PNC and the winner of the Georgia PGA’s Section Championship at Sea Island GC also earning a spot.
There will be seven spots available from the Standard Club qualifier.
Murchison, an assistant at Towne Lake Hills, is entered in the Georgia PGA PNC event, competing for a share of one of the biggest purses for the Georgia PGA pros, as well as points toward Player of the Year honors.
Joining Murchison in the field at the Standard Club are several players with long histories of participation in the PGA PNC.
Craig Stevens, an instructor at Brookstone CC, has made 15 appearances in the PNC and qualified for the PGA Championship three times, most recently at Atlanta Athletic Club in 2011. He has failed to qualify for the PGA PNC just once since 1999. Stevens has won the Section’s PNC qualifier three times, most recently in 2010 at The Manor.
Tim Weinhart, an instructor with the Nuclear Golf program based at the Standard Club, has qualified for the PNC 13 straight times, 14 overall, and has made five PGA Championship starts.
Weinhart will be especially motivated to qualify for the 2013 PGA Championship, which will be played at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y., where he was born and still has family in the area.
Like Stevens, Weinhart has won the Georgia PGA PNC three times – in 2006 and ’09, both at Chicopee Woods, and last year at Ansley Golf Club’s Settindown Creek. Weinhart has added a Georgia PGA win this year, taking the Section’s Match Play Championship at the UGA course in Athens.
Weinhart won in a playoff at Settindown Creek, defeating Currahee Club Director of Golf Clark Spratlin, another PNC veteran. Spratlin has played in the national club professional championship eight times, coming close to qualifying for the PGA Championship on a few occasions, including the 2007 PNC at Sunriver Resort, when he tied for 22nd, just one stroke out of the top 20.
Greg Lee, an assistant at Chicopee Woods, was 3rd in last year’s Georgia PGA PNC to earn his seventh start at nationals. Lee, who came close to qualifying for the PGA Championship in 2004, scored his lone win in the Section qualifier for the event later that year at West Lake CC in Augusta.
Sonny Skinner was 4th in last year’s PNC qualifier but did not compete at nationals, electing to play in a Champions Tour event that week. Skinner, a PGA professional at River Pointe in Albany, has qualified for the PNC each year since joining the Georgia PGA in 2006, and has twice finished second at nationals, including 2008 at Reynolds Plantation.
Skinner is one of three Georgia PGA members over the age of 50 who remain among the top players in the Section.
Stevens has placed 2nd in four Georgia PGA events this season and was a close 2nd on the 2012 points list coming into the recent Georgia PGA Championship.
The third Georgia PGA senior standout is Stephen Keppler, who has made just one start in the PNC since 2004. Keppler, the Director of Golf at Marietta CC, has competed in the PNC 13 times and qualified for the PGA Championship on four occasions, with his last PNC start coming in 2009.
After a long absence from the Georgia PGA winner’s circle, Keppler won the Section Championship last year for the fourth time – his first victory in the event since 1996 – and added the Championship at Berkeley Hills to his list of tournament titles this year. Keppler won the PNC qualifier in 1998 at Summit Chase, his former home club.
Going into the Section Championship, the only two-time Georgia PGA winner this year was Country Club of the South instructor David Potts, who scored victories at Griffin CC and Chicopee Woods. Potts is looking to qualify for the PNC for the first time.
Murchison, who was 3rd on the points list prior to the Section Championship, has qualified for the PNC each of the last two years, placing 2nd behind Stevens at The Manor in 2010 and getting in as an alternate this year when Skinner withdrew.
Other recent winners of the Georgia PGA’s PNC qualifier are UGA head professional Matt Peterson, who won at Athens CC in 2007, and Jeff Hull, the 2008 winner at Crystal Lake.
Hull, who contended in the recent Georgia Open, was an assistant coach on the Georgia women’s team last year. He recently took a similar position at Furman, joining former Georgia coach Kelly Hester, the first year head coach at the Greenville, S.C., school. Since Hull was in the Georgia PGA Section when he registered for the tournament, he is eligible to compete in the event despite his recent out-of-state employment.
Typically, the top players in the Section have been among the qualifiers for the PGA PNC, but several players emerge each year as somewhat unexpected qualifiers to make their first ever appearance at nationals.
Among the recent one-time qualifiers are: (2011) – Jordan Arnold, Achasta; Gary Miller, Reynolds Plantation; Kyle Owen, Dunwoody CC; (2010) – Ted Fort, Marietta Golf Center; Gary Cressend, Augusta CC; (2009) – Shae Stancil, Champions Retreat; Wyatt Detmer, Orchard Hills; Bill Price, Mizuno; (2008) – C.W. Canfield, Ford Plantation; Matthew Evans, Rivermont; (2007) – Randy Brooks, Settindown Creek; Brian Puterbaugh, Hooch.
The Standard Club hosted the Atlanta Open in 2007, with Hull tying for second behind amateur Bon Royak and finishing first among the Georgia PGA professionals with a 3-under 141 total.
Lee, Owen and Skinner tied for fourth at 142, with Weinhart, Keppler, Spratlin tying for 10th at 143.
The Georgia Section was scheduled to advance five players from the Senior PNC qualifier along with Skinner and Stevens, who were exempt into nationals off their showing in last year’s PNC.
Keppler was among the top players competing for the five spots in the Senior PNC. The event also served as the Georgia PGA’s Senior Championship, with players entering the PGA PNC qualifier separately from the GPGA Senior Championship.
Recent winners include Danny Elkins of Georgia Golf Center (2011, Green Island CC); Robert Burk of Valdosta’s Stone Creek (2010, Cartersville CC); Gregg Wolff, Willow Lake (2009, Cartersville CC); and Russ Davis, Cherokee Town & CC (2008, The Frog). There were two winners in 2010, with Skinner taking the qualifier for the Senior PGA PNC.