PINE VALLEY, NEW JERSEY | Stephen Behr Jr. and Tommy Brennan came away victorious on Sunday in the 97th Crump Cup, the annual mid-amateur and senior am celebration that takes place on the sacred grounds of Pine Valley Golf Club.
In the championship division, Behr erased a late 2-down deficit to beat Tug Maude, 2 and 1, in the semifinals and then used impressively steady play to vanquish Jimmy Ellis, 3 and 2, in a stop-and-start finale. This was the first year Behr earned an invitation to play in the Crump. The former Clemson University standout whom we wrote about at GGP+ in March of last year had become close with Crump regulars such as Jeff Osberg, Stewart Hagestad and Mike McCoy. When the call came to compete, he didn’t hesitate.
“I got chills driving out to the range my first day,” Behr told Global Golf Post. “It's just one of the most exceptional clubs and golf courses in the world. … I’m just a little speechless. It's a huge win for me and something I'm really proud of.”
Behr, a 29-year-old from Atlanta, came into the week ranked No. 475 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking on the strength of a solid 2021 where he reached the round of 16 at the U.S. Mid-Amateur, won the National Club Championship and had a top-five in the John T. Lupton Memorial. He has played mainly against younger competition in 2022 with starts in the Sunnehanna, Jones Cup, Azalea and Dogwood, but this victory against mid-ams at the Crump will likely go down as the highlight of his season.
He did it with a steady diet of fairways and greens. Trailing Maude late in his semifinals match on Sunday morning, Behr applied pressure by hitting greens at Nos. 15, 16 and 17 while Maude imploded with several uncharacteristic errors, including a straight chunk from the center of the 16th fairway.
That theme continued in the afternoon as Behr stayed one step ahead of Ellis, a Pittsburgh-area mid-am also making his first Crump start. Behr hit an exquisite tee shot on the arduous par-3 fifth and was conceded a birdie to go 1-up in the match, a margin he would hold until the 10th green when Ellis three-putted for bogey. When the pair reached the 11th green, the skies opened up and a rain delay forced a stoppage in play. Behr lost the 11th hole when play resumed – it would be momentarily halted again just a hole later – but he regained command shortly after that. Behr scrambled for a clutch bogey on the par-4 13th while Ellis three-putted for bogey, and that exchange sent the momentum squarely in Behr’s favor. Ellis had a difficult time getting loose after the stoppages and began to make unforced errors, playing right into Behr’s hands.
Ellis outdrove Behr by a wide margin for most of the match, sometimes going ahead of him by some 50 or 60 yards. That didn’t bother Behr, a consistent plodder. The son of longtime Florence (S.C.) Country Club head pro Stephen Behr Sr., the younger Behr came across as polished and well-coached.
“It’s Pine Valley, and it’s so painful if you get out of position,” Behr said. “And I just did a really good job of keeping the ball in front of me and continued to hit a lot of fairways.”
The senior division produced a more dramatic ending. Brennan, the soon-to-be 62-year-old from Covington, Louisiana, defeated his close friend Mike McCoy on the first extra hole after McCoy drove his tee shot into a fairway bunker up against a small tree. A tricky two-putt par was enough to beat McCoy, who had to pitch out sideways and couldn’t salvage par.
Brennan was elated in victory. After surviving a heart attack in October of 2014, the fast-talking Southerner who wears a pair of glasses looped around his neck has authored a stellar senior amateur career that includes making three U.S. Senior Opens and winning the 2016 Trans-Miss Senior.
He really wanted this one, though. Brennan knew there were only so many chances left to win the Crump, an event he has played for more than a decade, since back when McCoy first sponsored him to play in the tournament.
“It's been a long time since I played this good,” Brennan told Global Golf Post after the round. “You know what, I'm getting older. The clock is running out. I'm gonna be 62 in about a month. But I guess I'll get invited back now.”
The two battled all day. McCoy, who was looking for his sixth Crump title (four championship divisions, one senior division), won Nos. 7, 8 and 9 to take a 3-up lead over Brennan. The tenor of the match changed after that, however, as Brennan nearly aced No. 10, won with a par on No. 11 and then made birdie on No. 12 to square the match.
The two were all smiles coming into the clubhouse during the rain delay as Brennan joked that the tiebreaker should be “lowest weight wins” among the two of them. When they came back out, both competitors were neck and neck until McCoy’s poor tee shot on the par-4 first in the playoff.
“Winning here and getting some gold paint on the wall is fun,” Brennan, the 1994 U.S. Mid-Am runner-up, said. “And then of course, beating Mike is just a thrill because he's a top two or three senior amateur in the country.”
Here are a few other news and notes from the week at Pine Valley:
● George Crump famously wanted the course’s first hole to be a stern test so tiebreakers could go to the most deserving player. He would have liked what transpired on that hole during the tournament.
Not only did Brennan beat McCoy on the dogleg right par-4 to clinch the senior title, but Ellis made a 15-foot birdie putt to beat Hagestad in the semifinals.
Earlier in the tournament, a 6-for-5 playoff to get into the 16-man championship bracket took place on the first hole. Kevin Van Rossum looked to be the odd man out when he surprisingly popped up a 3-wood off the tee into trouble, but he miraculously found a way to make bogey. At the same time, Kris Mikkelsen had hit the fairway but endured a costly error on his way to making double bogey after his approach went right of the green.
● The medalist honor went to Scott Harvey, who shot even-par 140 to beat Hagestad by three strokes. The unrelenting course played particularly tough on Friday as Harvey’s 2-over 72 matched the low round of the day.
Harvey’s opening 68 had a few unique elements. He aced the par-3 10th hole and played the four par-3s in 3-under. Meanwhile, he bogeyed the two par-5s on the course, both of which are essentially unreachable because of their length. Such is Pine Valley.
His hole-in-one wasn’t the most impressive ace of the tournament, however. Charles Waddell made a 1 on the par-3 fifth, a gargantuan hole that usually requires a mighty whack with a fairway wood. Some players have been known to lay up on the hole in match play, and success has been had with the strategy.
● Is beating your age at Pine Valley cool? Chip Lutz of Reading, Pennsylvania, did just that in the opening round.
The 67-year-old opened with a 4-under 66 and went on to medal in the senior division.
● There have often been a couple thousand spectators roaming the grounds of Pine Valley for the Crump’s final day. In the past, it had been a way for mere mortals to come see a course that is routinely ranked as one of the best, if not the best, in the world.
That tradition has been suspended by the club, so there were perhaps 30 or so players, members and employees following the championship match before the weather delay. Those who were on site and waited through the weather delay – just a handful of people, most of whom were associated with the club – were treated to a rare sighting in the evening as the sun peeked out and a double rainbow formed over the grounds.
● It’s likely that no tournament in the world focuses on camaraderie more than the Crump. A suit-and-tie tournament dinner is held after the two stroke-play qualifying rounds, and those in the championship bracket are sat next to their ensuing round-of-16 opponent.
Out on the course, caddies regularly walk ahead to keep an eye on tee shots. This allows competitors to walk together and carry on conversations, two players often walking in seclusion for minutes at a time before they reach their balls.
Every player stays on site, and those who have been knocked out earlier in the tournament are set up with consolation matches. Many players were following the action on Sunday, including Maude, Garrett Rank and Joe Deraney.
It’s not just about the play on the course. Sharing bonds with close friends is a trademark of the Crump.
● Ellis, the 2020 Pennsylvania State Open winner, may not have won in his Crump debut, but the relationship he had with his Pine Valley caddie, Tim, was incredibly entertaining.
Both matched outgoing personalities as they talked through every shot in granular detail. Walking up the fourth hole on Sunday, Tim remarked that “sometimes it’s best to play Pine Valley blind because you don’t know where all the trouble lurks.” Ellis proved that as he was shepherded around brilliantly by his looper.
A couple of holes later, Ellis asked Tim how he remembered a certain yardage from a previous match. “Are you a savant?” he asked earnestly. “Well I may have written it down in my yardage book,” Tim answered back.
And then, our personal favorite, which came on the 10th green. Ellis hit to the middle of the green and had to putt down a steep slope at a near 90-degree angle. Looking like he was ready to hit, he finally backed off and said, “Wait, so where am I going here?”
Sean Fairholm