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Centerville, Ohio – Jeff Grant, PGA, General Manager and COO of NCR Country Club, was elected President of the Southern Ohio PGA on Monday, October 20, 2025 at the Southern Ohio PGA Annual Fall Meeting.
“As I step into the role of President, my priority is simple: to put our members first in everything we do,” noted Grant following the meeting. “Together, we will build upon the tremendous foundation laid by past leadership, strengthen our programs and services, and continue to move the Southern Ohio PGA toward becoming one of the very best Sections in the country — one that others look to emulate.”
Succeeding Grant as Vice President is Joe Falardeau, PGA, the Director of Golf at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, OH. Rob Karnes, PGA, Director of Golf at NCR Country Club was elected the new Secretary of the Southern Ohio PGA.
Starr, Stills Chosen as At-Large Directors
Matt Starr, PGA, Head Professional at Meadow Links & Golf Academy and Mike Stills, PGA, Head Professional at Jefferson Golf and Country Club were elected as At-Large Directors with the Southern Ohio PGA. Both will serve two-year terms that started immediately following their election, ending at the Fall Meeting in 2027.
Starr has been involved with the PGA HOPE program since 2018 and serves on the PGA REACH Southern Ohio Managing Directors. He’s previously served as an Officer on the Southwest Chapter board and is a Certified Professional in General Management, Golf Operations, Teaching & Coaching, and Player Development. Starr has claimed a number of SOPGA Awards, including Golf Professional of the Year in 2023.
Stills has been a prominent figure with the Central Ohio Chapter of Folds of Honor while also serving on numerous SOPGA committees in the past. He earned the Patriot Award in 2020 and 2021.
Powell, Ohio - The night before the first tee shot of the 29th Ohio Cup, the men’s grill at Wedgewood Golf & Country Club was full and, unusually, silent. No post-round stories, no laughter echoing off the wood-paneled walls. Just a stillness, the kind that makes an already meaningful competition feel even larger.
With his team gathered around, Southern Ohio PGA Captain Bob Sowards pressed play on a short video message from the greatest to ever hold a golf club: Jack Nicklaus.
Jack spoke of pride, of the glory of matchplay. Of playing for something beyond yourself. When the Golden Bear tells you to go out and play with purpose, you listen. And late Wednesday afternoon, after two long days of golf, those words seemed to hang in the autumn air as the final singles matches came down to the wire.
The day began with the final holes of foursomes play, unfinished from the previous evening’s rain. That type of rain that seeps into your shoes and stays there till morning. A chill greeted the 32 competitors but soon gave way to one of those flawless Ohio fall days. The foursomes wrapped quickly, as if the players were eager to get ahead to the main event. That session finished in favor of Southern Ohio, who won five of the eight available points to extend its lead, 9.5 to 6.5.
In singles, Captain Sowards led from the front again. His 4&3 win pushed his team into double digits, creating a bit of breathing room. Moments later, Michael Auterson delivered another crucial point to keep the momentum going, his best kind of redemption after a 2025 season full of near-misses.
For the better part of an hour, the scoreboard glowed Southern Ohio blue. Then Northern Ohio pushed back, its middle-order singles charging hard. On the 18th green, Jack’s words returned.Sam Arnold arrived needing a birdie to halve his match with Northern Ohio’s captain Mitch Camp. Bang–right in the middle. Tie. Five minutes later, Joe Moore found himself in the exact same situation, facing a right-to-left slider that everyone else left short and low. Not Joe! The moment it left his putter, it was good. Another half point flipped. Rookie Andrew Martin stood in the middle of 18 fairway in need of some help to halve his match against Cory Kumpf. He got it and added another half point.
Then came Chad Ammer. Southern Ohio sat on 15 points, a point and a half shy of victory. When Tony Adcock’s layup found water, Ammer seized his chance: a perfect layup, a tidy wedge to the middle of the green and a legendary lag putt that led to a concession. Southern Ohio was suddenly within half a point of the Cup.They didn’t wait long. Minutes later, Ben Kern rolled in his third birdie of the day, going dormie 3-up on Jasen Hansen and clinching the decisive half point.
“The Ohio Cup is always close,” said Sowards, trophy in hand. “It never fails that it comes down to the final matches every year. I’m already looking forward to next year.”
With the result sealed but pride still on the line, Scioto Country Club’s Jared Jones rallied in the last match to earn another half, closing the 29th Ohio Cup at 17.5 - 14.5 for Southern Ohio.
It was not a rout, and that made it sweeter. The win came from depth, from steadiness, from a team that found something extra in Tuesday’s rain and Wednesday’s golden light. As hands were shaken and the trophy lifted, Sowards spoke of camaraderie, of friendship wrapped in rivalry. Captain Camp, ever gracious, echoed him: the competition is bigger than the result.
The Ohio Cup has always been about that balance, competition bound by camaraderie, rivalry softened by respect. It endures because it matters to those who play it.
As the handshakes and hugs multiplied, the entire Southern Ohio team retreated to where Captain Sowards got them going Monday evening, with a little help from the Golden Bear.
This time, the men’s grill was loud again, joyful and glorious.
Columbus, Ohio - The first true fall day of the year arrived just in time for the finale. The warmth of another summer stretching into October finally gave way to gray skies and multiple layers. Scioto Country Club, always the stage for golf that matters, gave no quarter or comfort to the players on its firm, fast greens at the 2025 Southern Ohio Tour Championship. What it did give was room for one of the best head-to-head showdown’s in SOPGA history. Both Bob Sowards and Sam Arnold delivered.
Golf’s history is rich with duels between champions. Nicklaus and Watson’s “Duel in the Sun” at Turnberry, Mickelson and Stenson at Royal Troon, Vardon and Ouimet in their greatest game. All great clashes are remembered through a turn of phrase. Given Scioto’s diabolical hole locations, perhaps “The Duel of No Fun” is a fitting name for the marathon of endurance and nerve on display Wednesday.
The final round began with Arnold and Sowards in the last group after matching opening rounds of 72. Jared Jones of Scioto joined them, two shots back. Arnold struck first with a birdie at the third hole. He picked up two more when Sowards doubled the devilish par-3 fourth. By the turn, Arnold held a three-shot advantage.
Sowards, who has made a career out of steady, relentless golf, leaned into what he knows best: control. A birdie at the 13th got him back within two. He pulled a full reversal on the 16th, rolling in another birdie while Arnold made bogey. He followed that with another birdie on 17 to flip the script entirely. The leader all day suddenly found himself trailing on the final tee.
He’s been here before. Last week at the 29th Ohio Cup, the Southern Ohio team found themselves looking at the singles leaderboard with concerned eyes. Originally full of SOPGA blue, Northern Ohio was making their move to chip away at the lead and someone needed to stop that red wave. Enter Sam.
Arnold stood over a 25 foot birdie putt on the 18th green at Wedgewood Golf & Country Club, needing to make it to halve his match against Northern Ohio captain Mitch Camp. His putt never left the center and gave Southern Ohio a huge half point on their way to securing the win. His captain then? Bob Sowards.
This time, facing Sowards himself, Arnold delivered again. A perfect drive, pure iron, and a 15-footer that tumbled in for birdie to force extra holes.
By the time they reached the playoff, the day felt older than it was. The sun, barely visible behind the clouds, hovered low, its light thin and tired. The playoff began on Scioto’s first. Both players found the green and made routine pars.
Number two at Scioto underwent a pretty remarkable transformation as part of the 2021 restoration under Andrew Green. Once a brutish and somewhat tight par-4, it now shares a fairway with the par-5 sixth hole, and requires strategic placement of the tee shot. Too far right and the heavily-canted fairway will funnel balls into the right rough and a blind second. Too far left and a sweeping collection area will channel balls into a low area that cuts off any direct approach to the green. Sowards feathered a butter cut to position a, Arnold’s tee shot drifted right into that bowl on the left, complicating his second shot.
What happened next will be talked about for a long time in SOPGA circles. Arnold’s second shot clipped a tree and knocked the ball backward and left, not 25 yards from its original position. His third was a low hook that miraculously ran to 30 feet. It was an extraordinary recovery, the kind that echoes.
It was so good, it might have affected Sowards’ birdie effort. The second green sneakily runs back to front, grading gradually back toward the fairway, and sees a lot of four foot putts go twelve. Gravity got Sowards on his third, carrying the ball beyond the hole and into the bottom tier of the green, leaving him a testy uphill 25-footer for par. In another classic Sowards move, he almost made it, one turn shy of an epic two-putt. Instead it was a three-putt bogey and the door opened for Arnold to drop another bomb to take the title.
Gravity grabbed another one. Arnold barely breathed on his downhiller and it still rolled out to around eight feet. Standing over the putt to stay alive, Arnold took a final look and struck it firm. It was the kind of effort that goes in almost anywhere but instead, the ball took a cruel quarter inch turn right at the very end. A heartbreaking lip out.
Double bogey. Ballgame.
Sowards removed his cap, exhaled, and shook Arnold’s hand. Both players were absolutely exhausted from the challenge and the competition.
“Not all wins are pretty,” said Sowards afterward. In truth, that’s all he really needed to say.
His victory, another in a career already full of them, wasn’t loud or showy. It was earned, the way the best golf is: through patience, through the small mastery of enduring conditions that make everyone else uncomfortable.
Behind them, the leaderboard spoke to Scioto’s difficulty. Jones, the club’s own, finished third at nine-over. Alex Martin was another shot back in fourth. The field, full of accomplished players, had been tested and humbled by a golf course that always seems to know when to bare its teeth.
Arnold deserves a few column inches of credit. He’s a quiet warrior in spikes, unafraid of chasing the dream while dealing with a day job. He got through the first stage of Champions Tour Q-School late last year and got some well-deserved national media attention. He was an Ohio Cup hero and is a credit to PGA professionals, everywhere. He played great golf all season long.
As the last few spectators drifted toward the warmth of the clubhouse, the cold finally settled in for good. The season’s end was here. Sowards, holding the trophy for a second straight year, smiled the kind of smile that knows the work behind it, the hours practiced, the quiet belief. In his left hand, another Tour Championship trophy. In his right, the Ohio Cup.
“One of these is the important one,” he said, gesturing to the Ohio Cup. “I want to keep that around.”
Columbus, OH - When Team Ohio competes on golf’s biggest youth stage next month, they’ll be playing for more than a national title. The group of nine talented junior golfers, ages 10 to 13, will represent the Southern Ohio PGA Section at the PGA Jr. League National Championship, held November 18-20 at PGA Frisco in Texas and broadcast on ESPN. But while their sights are set on birdies and scoreboards, those birdies will mean something far greater back home.
In partnership with PGA REACH Southern Ohio and the Stuckey Firm, Team Ohio is inviting the community to pledge a donation for every birdie the team makes during the Championship. Proceeds will benefit PGA REACH Southern Ohio, the Section’s 501(c)(3) foundation dedicated to supporting Veterans, youth and underserved communities through golf.
“Every birdie we make will help someone right here in Southern Ohio,” said Head Coach Chris Yoder, PGA, of Scioto Country Club. “Our kids are not only great players, they’re learning how golf can be a force for good.”
Team Ohio’s commitment to their community runs deep. Beyond their competitive success, the team regularly volunteers through Smiling Fore Life, a PGA REACH Southern Ohio program that brings the therapeutic benefits of golf to patients at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. The juniors spend time engaging with children and patients, helping and encouraging them around a SNAG Golf course. For a few brief moments, the children are able to put aside the emotional strain of illness to share some smiles and laughs.
This November, that same spirit drives their fundraising efforts. With four two-player teams competing over 36 holes, the group expects to make between 50 and 65 birdies, with each one turning into a donation toward programs that remove barriers to the game. Initiatives like “Clubs Fore Kids” which provides new golf equipment to students in need, the Veterans outreach program PGA HOPE Southern Ohio and other community-focused efforts that remind everyone that golf’s greatest gift is connection. The team’s campaign aims to raise $20,000 for PGA REACH Southern Ohio.
Spectators can follow Team Ohio’s rounds on ESPN 2 and ESPN+ and make their pledges by clicking here.
“Golf has given these kids so much,” said Southern Ohio PGA Executive Director Patrick Salva. “The fact that they’re using their moment in the spotlight to give back says everything about who they are and what the Southern Ohio PGA stands for.”
As they head to Frisco, Team Ohio will chase two goals: a national championship trophy, and a brighter future through PGA REACH Southern Ohio.
