Chicagoland’s Andrew Price captured the George Arthur Crump Memorial Tournament at famed Pine Valley (New Jersey) Golf Club on Sunday, defeating Jimmy Ellis, 2 and 1, in the championship match.
Price, 42, of Lake Bluff, Illinois, qualified for the championship flight by shooting 8-over-par 148. He downed Evan Beck, 1-up, in his opening match and followed with a 1-up win over Ireland’s Matthew McClean. In his Sunday morning semifinal, Price clipped Brad Tilley, the co-medalist in stroke-play qualifying, 2 and 1.
Ellis advanced to the final match by defeating defending champion Stewart Hagestad, 1-up.
Price recently won his second Illinois Mid-Amateur title, 10 years after he claimed his first state crown. However, he called winning the Crump Cup his biggest career win. “It’s such a good field. And on that golf course, anything can happen,” he said.
Twenty years after losing in the final to Mike McCoy, Jamie Slonis claimed the senior championship flight, surviving a 19-hole bout against Gene Elliott. Slonis, a frequent Crump competitor, turned 55 last fall and was debuting in the senior flight. He rolled in his first two matches, winning by 8-and-7 and 7-and-6 scores, before running into Elliott in the final.
“Fairways and greens,” is how Slonis described his round against Elliott. The match was back and forth all day; the first halved hole did not take place until the ninth. Slonis won after Elliott missed the green left on the first playoff hole. Slonis hit what he called “one of my best shots ever,” landing an 8-iron 7 feet from the pin. Elliott conceded the birdie putt and the win.
Other flight winners: Gregor Orlando (championship second flight), Taylor Wood (third flight) and Robert Gerwin (senior second flight).
RESULTS
Christopher Devlin won the overall title and the mid-master division at the revamped Trans-Miss Mid-Master and Mid-Amateur Championship, played last week at Brasada Ranch Canyons Golf Club in Bend, Oregon.
Devlin, a native of Ireland who lives in Birmingham, Alabama, posted rounds of 63-67-66 for a 20-under-par 196, 14 strokes ahead of Carson Pilcher of Atlanta, Georgia, in the mid-master division. Chris Thayer of Golden, Colorado, finished third at 3-under 213.
Devlin’s score was also good enough for a nine-shot win for the overall tournament title. Paul Mitzel of Gig Harbor, Washington, finished second at 11-under 205 in the overall competition and won the mid-amateur division.
Nearing his 50th birthday, Devlin now must decide about heading to the PGA Tour Champions.
The mid-master had been a division of the Trans-Miss Senior for many years, but with the expansion of the senior division and the increasing demand among the 40-plus-year-olds, the event was spun off into its own championship, and a mid-amateur flight was added. Both flights played from the same tees.
Jim Nugent