2024 Senior Match Play Preview
17th Men's and 4th Women's
Senior Match Play Championship Preview
It’s Match Play time for the Pennsylvania Golf Association. At least in the Senior and Super Senior versions for now. Play gets underway, Monday, May 20, with the two-day affair continuing Tuesday at Northampton Country Club in Easton, Pa. to determine champions in four divisions: Men’s Senior and Super Senior as well as Women’s Senior and Super Senior. The men’s competition will be contested for the 17th time, while the women’s event is in its fourth year.
Competition in the men’s Senior could be fierce as it includes past champions and players appearing throughout the national rankings among the top senior amateurs in the country. Hannastown Golf Club’s Sean Knapp will defend his title he won a year ago when he captured a 1-up victory over Connoquenessing Country Club’s Rick Stimmel in the final. Stimmel also returns.
Chris Fieger, Sr. of Heidelberg Country Club, who was third a week ago in the Senior Open at Sewickley Heights, David Blichar, the 2022 Pennsylvania Senior Amateur Champion, as well as Lehigh Country Club’s Bob Beck, the match play titlist in 2019, enhance the list of possible contenders. The Senior division will include 16 players with two matches scheduled each day.
Five Ponds’ Brian Rothaus, the defending Super Senior champion, along with Indiana Country Club’s Don Erickson and Don Donatoni (White Manor Country Club) have combined to win the last five Super Senior match play titles and all will be in the 2024 field once again.
In the Women’s Senior division, Northampton Country Club’s Noreen Mohler, the 2023 runner-up, will look to finish to job this year and will face other competitors with past success in the event. They include the 2022 winner Karen Sigel (Commonwealth National Golf Club) who defeated Suzi Spotleson (Rivercrest Country Club) in 19 holes in the final. Spotleson is also in the 2024 field.
Huntsville Golf Club’s Barbara Pagana, who won the Super Senior title in 2022, will battle two other players in the unique Threesomes format in which the competitors will play individually against each of the other two players over the two-day competition with point totals for winning the front and back nines and overall match each day being accumulated to choose the Super Senior champion.
The event is sponsored by Dick’s Sporting Goods.