NAPLES, FLORIDA | At age 11, Mark Costanza had come home after playing at the Tuxedo Club, a Robert Trent Jones-designed course where he learned the game just beyond the northern New Jersey border into New York State. As he often did as a junior, Costanza played well that day, highlighted by making a hole-in-one.
“That night, the pro of the club came to our house for dinner and said, ‘Hey, what do you think of what Mark did today?’ †Ralph Costanza, Mark’s father, remembers. “Mark had been home for four or five hours and never even mentioned it.
“Golf just came naturally to him. He was never in your face saying how good he was. He just does what he does and goes about it quietly.â€
Now one of the top mid-amateurs in the country coming off his best year of golf, Costanza is still one for letting his results do the talking. The 32-year-old resident of Jersey City went on a heater of a lifetime in 2020, winning the 100th New Jersey State Golf Association Open Championship in a three-hole playoff, chipping in for eagle on the final hole to take home the Metropolitan Golf Association’s Ike Championship and earning top-five finishes in the NJSGA Mid-Amateur, the NJSGA Amateur and the MGA Mid-Amateur.
He’s only the third player to win NJSGA and MGA player-of-the-year honors in the same season. His recent run – which included an 11th-place finish at the college golfer-laden Azalea Invitational a month ago – has him ranked the No. 26 mid-amateur in the country.
“I’ve been playing in MGA events since I was 13 years old, and I’ve always looked up to guys who won the Ike or who won player of the year,†Costanza said. “There was a time when doing something like this felt unattainable for me, but I’m sure glad it wasn’t.â€
Costanza’s golf career began on an accelerated timeline. Starting at 2 years old, he would go into the spacious backyard of his family’s house in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, and whack balls off the terrace. He grew bigger than most kids his age and eventually could hold his own against older competition, which became evident in meaningful tournaments. He won the Met Golf Association Boys Championship in 2003 and, that same year as a 14-year-old, made the cut in the Met Open going up against a field full of professionals. Four years later, he captured the Met Junior Championship in addition to helping Bergen Catholic High School to two state championships. Not surprisingly, he was considered a top college recruit.
“I think I was an early bloomer around 12, 13 years old,†Costanza said. “And then I had a stretch from maybe my junior year of high school through college and maybe a couple of years after where, sure, I still played golf but I wasn’t really doing anything of note.â€
“I didn’t have the desire for professional golf and I didn’t feel like I was playing well enough to justify making that move.â€
Mark Costanza
He had always considered himself a feel player with minimal instruction needed. Ralph Costanza recalls plenty of people telling him that his son should continue to rely on his natural ability and eschew a more technical approach. But at age 15, Mark and his parents agreed that he should try going to a well-known national instructor hoping to take his game to another level.
The game, instead, became a lot more complicated.
“I started playing golf swing as opposed to playing golf,†Costanza said, choosing not to name the instructor. “I remember having a lesson and seeing my swing on video and he said, ‘We should change this, this, this and this.’ And I was thinking, ‘Hey, I didn’t think there was that much wrong.’ Every time I hit a bad shot, I reverted back to mechanics. It felt like I couldn’t unleash my full golf potential like I had been prior to that.â€
Costanza attended Southern Methodist University, a highly respected program in the college ranks, but struggled to find his footing there. He was the only northeastern player on a Texas-based team for which qualifying to play in tournaments often was more trying than the events themselves. After one year with little success, he transferred back to St. John’s University in New York, giving himself the opportunity to play more college tournaments while being closer to home. He had a mostly middling career for the Johnnies, his highlight coming in the 2010-11 season when he led the team with a 73.69 stroke average.
Keegan Bradley, a St. John’s alum, won the 2011 PGA Championship while Costanza was in school. That victory gave many of his teammates the thought that professional success wasn’t necessarily far away, but Costanza had a different feeling upon graduation.
“I had the mentality that I wanted to start working and get a career going,†Costanza said. “I didn’t have the desire for professional golf and I didn’t feel like I was playing well enough to justify making that move.â€
After school, Costanza worked for a mortgage company in New Jersey for a year and a half. Although that part of his life was off to a strong start, he felt a pull to take a legitimate run at pro golf while still young enough to try it. That led him to set up shop in Orlando, Florida, as he took a two-year run at mini-tours, Q-School and Monday qualifiers. But similar to his college career, his limited success never brought him close to sustaining any sort of living in the game.
Ironically, it was his getting away from golf that allowed Costanza to recapture the freedom of his junior days where the game flowed toward him instead of away from him. He didn’t play much golf during his first year back in the “real world†while waiting to become a reinstated amateur – Costanza now works in financial advising for Netrex Capital Markets – but he eventually tried to qualify for an occasional amateur championship around the New York area.
After getting his footing in the workforce, Costanza joined Hamilton Farm Golf Club in Gladstone, New Jersey, where his St. John’s teammate, Pat Wilson, and former PGA Tour winner Jason Gore became routine playing partners.
“Having some good rounds with them, it sort of motivated me to say, ‘You know what, if I can translate how I’m playing here to some of these events, I could do pretty well,’ †Costanza said. “It was really the start of last year where I decided I would play a full schedule and make this a priority.â€
In 2019, Costanza played one qualifier for the U.S. Mid-Amateur, shooting 68 to earn medalist honors. That reignited a competitive fire. If he was a victim of poor timing in his youth, he received much better timing in 2020 as the pandemic afforded him more room to work on his game.
There was no instruction in his way this time. In fact, Costanza hasn’t taken a golf lesson in several years.
The emphasis now is on his intuition and golf IQ. With a handful of holes left to play in the Ike Championship, he saw Ethan Ng had shot 68 to reach 6-under for the tournament, one stroke ahead of Costanza with no other player threatening the lead. Knowing the Country Club of Darien’s reachable par-5 18th hole represented a great chance to make up ground, Costanza grinded for clutch par saves and then hit two solid 3-woods at the last to leave himself chipping from close range.
His eagle chip rolled in perfectly, sending him from one stroke down to a one-stroke victory.
“It’s cool that I’m always going to have that video clip to share with family and friends,†Costanza said.
“Winning a Mid-Am or making noise there, I think that has become the ultimate goal moving forward. Obviously we know what comes along with winning that event.â€
MARK COSTANZA
After winning two major tournaments in the New York area, Costanza is hoping to compete more on a national level, including this past weekend in the Terra Cotta Invitational at Naples National in southwestern Florida, where he finished T40 out of 70 top amateurs. He likely will gain an exemption into the U.S. Mid-Amateur due to his World Amateur Golf Ranking.
“Winning a Mid-Am or making noise there, I think that has become the ultimate goal moving forward,†Costanza said. “Obviously we know what comes along with winning that event.â€
In a lot of ways, however, Costanza has accomplished one of the more daunting tasks among all of golf’s challenges already. He had success, lost his way and then recaptured what made him great in the first place.
“I’m playing the best golf I’ve ever played,†he said. “It’s funny how golf works sometimes.â€
Top: In 2020, Mark Costanza became the third player to sweep player-of-the-year honors from both the New Jersey State and Metropolitan golf associations.
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