By Mike Blum
A few days before the Georgia PGA Championship was scheduled to begin at Sea Island GC, Sonny Skinner was in the suburbs of Seattle, hoping to get into a Champions Tour event.
Skinner became the first alternate for the Champions Tour tournament Monday afternoon of tournament week. He arrived in Seattle on Tuesday in case one other player withdrew from the tournament, as a number had done on Monday to move Skinner well up the alternate list.
But when the last group teed off on Friday, Skinner was still not in the field, repeating his experience of the previous week when he was second alternate in a tournament in upstate New York when it began play.
Skinner headed back to Georgia and an uncertain weather forecast to compete in the Section Championship, an event he won in 2009 more than three months after it began when heavy rains prevented the tournament from being completed in late August.
Because of threatening weather forecasts, the tournament began each day with a 9 a.m. shotgun start for all players, and despite some rain during the opening round, play was never suspended.
The tournament came down to a two-man battle between Skinner and four-time champion Stephen Keppler, who won last year on Sea Island’s Seaside Course. This time, the event was held on the adjoining Plantation Course.
Keppler began the final round with a 2-stroke lead over Skinner, who quickly closed within one of Keppler’s lead and pulled ahead by one shot heading to the final nine.
After the third hole, neither player led by more than one, with Keppler pulling even with Skinner on three separate occasions on the final nine. Keppler birdied two of the last four holes to put pressure on Skinner, who notched birdies on three of the last five to secure the victory.
Skinner, a PGA professional at River Pointe GC in Albany, shot a final round 67 to finish at 10-under 206. Keppler, the Director of Golf at Marietta CC, closed with a 70 to take second at 207. Skinner took home the winner’s check of $4,000, with Keppler collecting $2,700.
The tournament was sponsored by E-Z-GO and ExecGolf.
Keppler opened the tournament with a 68, carding seven birdies on the day to trail first round leader Russ Davis of Cherokee Town & CC by one. Skinner was tied for 5th at 70. Keppler took the 36-hole at 137, playing his last 11 holes of the second round in 4-under for a 69, giving him a 2-stroke advantage over Skinner (69) and Davis (72) heading to the final round.
Davis quickly fell off the pace, leaving Keppler and Skinner to stage a back-and-forth duel for the Georgia PGA’s Section Championship.
Both players hit their approach shots on the par-4 opening hole inside 10 feet and both holed their putts for birdie to set the stage for their final round shootout. Both players had birdie opportunities on the par-4 second, with Skinner capitalizing to close within one of the lead.
“I had it in my mind that I was going to try and birdie every hole,” said Skinner, whose brief birdie streak ended with a bogey on the par-3 third. But Skinner came right back with a birdie putt from inside 10 feet on the par-5 fourth to again reduce Keppler’s lead to one.
After the two players matched pars over the next four holes, Skinner took the lead when he holed a birdie putt of some 40 feet at the ninth while Keppler made bogey from a greenside bunker.
Keppler rolled in a birdie putt in the 25-foot range in the 10th, but Skinner matched it with a birdie of his own from six feet.
Skinner almost drove out of bounds on the 13th and made bogey to fall back into a tie, but hit his approach shot to three feet on the 14th to reclaim the lead. Keppler came right back by holing a long birdie putt on the 15th before Skinner went in front for the last time when he birdied the par-4 17th from 20 feet.
Leading by one heading to the risk/reward par-5 18th, Skinner was just inside 60 yards from the green in the two, needing to get up-and-down for birdie to match Keppler, who was putting for eagle from long range.
Skinner hit his short third to 10 feet and made the putt for his winning birdie, with Keppler two-putting to finish second in the event for the fifth time since 2005.
“I love playing with Stephen,” Skinner said. “He makes you focus on every shot. Stephen and I have gone up against each other a number of times, and it’s probably fifty-fifty.
“This is the biggest tournament in the Section and we both wanted to win it really bad.”
Skinner took particular satisfaction over how we won the tournament.
“You don’t always finish off tournaments like that. I birdied three of the last five holes and Stephen birdied two of the last five. I made a few more putts. That’s what it came down to.”
Brian Corn, an assistant at Peachtree GC, had seven birdies in a final round 68 and placed 3rd at 210. Tim Weinhart, the 2005 Section champion, also closed with a 68
to tie for 4th with Danny Elkins of the Georgia Golf Center. Elkins shot 67 in the third round with seven birdies, four coming in succession at holes 15, 16, 17 and 18.
Dunwoody CC assistant Kyle Owen, the fourth member of the lead group the final day, shot 72 to take 6th at 212. Players over the age of 50 took eight of the top 13 spots, with Stone Creek’s Bob Burk 7th at 213, Augusta CC’s Tommy Brannen 8th at 214, Craig Stevens of Brookstone CC 9th at 216 and Davis 10th at 217 along with Champions Tour player James Mason, a former Section champion.
The tournament was played under soft conditions, with little roll on the fairways and a healthy spread of rough.
Skinner said beginning with a shotgun start each day “was different. I got to tee off on number one each day, so that was perfect. I think it was no issue whatsoever.”
After a lengthy career playing on the PGA Tour and what began as the Ben Hogan Tour, Skinner began playing a full Georgia PGA schedule in 2006, and has been a consistently successful performer in Section events since.
Skinner won the Georgia PGA Match Play Championship in ’06 when he earned Player of the Year honors. He won the Section Championship in ’09 and has won both the Georgia PGA Senior PNC and Georgia Senior Open since he turned 50, taking the Senior Open earlier this year.
Since 2010, Skinner has made a dozen Champions Tour starts, including back-to-back appearances in the Senior PGA Championship. Skinner has enjoyed much of his success in recent years at national PGA events, twice finishing as runner-up in the PGA PNC, the national championship for the country’s club professionals.
Those runner-up finishes earned Skinner spots in the PGA Championship in 2008 and 2010. He qualified for this year’s PNC, but gave up his spot in the event to compete in a Champions Tour event that week, one of seven he’s played in this year.
Bill Murchison, the Georgia PGA member who took Skinner’s spot in the PNC, wound up qualifying for the PGA Championship. Murchison tied for 10th in the Section Championship.
Skinner has become accustomed to life as an alternate, with most of his starts coming in that manner. He has successfully Monday qualified a few times, but usually has to rely on others withdrawing for him to get into Champions Tour fields.
“You get accustomed to it,” he says. “It’s not that big a deal.”
Skinner tied for sixth in the finals of Champions Tour qualifying last year, but only the top five finishers earn exempt status. That finished improved Skinner’s status from 2011 (he was T17 in qualifying in 2010), but not enough to get into tournaments on a regular basis.
The best finish in a Champions Tour event for Skinner remains his first start – a T20
in Raleigh, N.C. in 2010. A tie for 31st is his best showing this year.
While most of Skinner’s pre-Champions Tour career was spent on the Hogan/Nike/Buy.com/Nationwide Tour, he spent four years on the PGA Tour in the 1990s. He won twice on the Nike Tour in 1993 and ’94, last playing regularly on the tour in ’04.
Skinner will head back to qualifying, with the first stage set for mid-October in and the finals in early November, both in Florida. He also expects to compete in both PNC qualifiers even though he is exempt into nest month’s Senior PGA PNC and next year’s PNC.
With a victory in the PNC qualifier at the Standard Club in early October, Skinner could earn Georgia PGA Player of the Year honors for 2012, something he accomplished in his first full year of competing in Section events in 2006.