2024 PA Open Preview

Kraft Set to Defend Open Title at St. Clair CC

Professional Kevin Kraft (2^nd Swing Golf) will attempt to lift the Arnold Palmer Trophy for the third time at the 108^th Pennsylvania Open hosted by St. Clair Country Club, August 12-14. The Pennsylvania Golf Association (PAGA) event featuring 55 professional and 62 amateur golfers from throughout the state is presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods. Three championships will be decided in this affair including the overall, professional and amateur competitions.

Kraft, the defending champion and also the titlist in 2018, is looking to be the tournament’s first back-to-back winner in 17 years. Last season at the Country Club of York, he fired rounds of 70, 64 and 67 for a nine-under total of 201 to finish two shots clear of amateur Calen Sanderson (Jericho National Golf Club). Kraft birdied the final two holes to secure the victory.

In getting the win last year and then adding a win in May at the Pennsylvania Senior Open at Sewickley Heights over another extremely strong field, he became the first player to hold both the Open and Senior Open titles at the same time. The winner trailed by three shots entering the second round in the 36-hole event but rallied to defeat three players by a single stroke. His birdie on the final hole made runners-up of fellow professionals John Pillar (Woodloch Springs Country Club), Kevin Shields (The Club at Nevillewood) and amateur Jeff Frazier (Carlisle Country Club).

Multiple challengers with past success in the professional division will battle for the top spot in this year’s Open including 2022 champion Jake Sollon (The Longue Vue Club), and Alex Blickle (LedgeRock Golf Club), who captured the 2021 title. In addition, Pillar, the 2014 champion, Shields, who lost the 2023 Senior Open in a playoff, and Longue Vue’s Tanner Grzegorczyk, the 2022 runner-up, as well as Gregor Meyer (Hannastown Golf Club), who won the 2023 Pennsylvania Amateur and has now joined the professional ranks, will compete for the title.   

Last year’s Open runner-up Sanderson returns after winning PAGA Player of the Year honors in 2023 heading a solid group of amateurs. Karl Frisk (Outdoor Country Club), whom Sanderson narrowly edged out for the PAGA player of the year award and winner of the J.Sigel Match Play Championship a year ago, is in the field along with former Pa. Am champ John Peters (Carlisle Country Club) and reigning Pa. Mid-Am champion Zach Dilcher (LedgeRock Golf Club). Another strong challenge could come from Nathan Piatt (Oakmont Country Club), who claimed the 2024 Western Pennsylvania Golf Association (WPGA) amateur championship in June.  

 The last player to capture the Open trophy in consecutive years was Treesdale Golf and Country Club’s Mike Van Sickle in 2007 and 2008. That feat has happened only three times previously. The other two players to accomplish the rare double were Hershey Golf Club’s John Weitzel in 1955-56 and Steve Kovach (Ligonier Country Club) in 1946-47.

Kraft is on an impressive short list of past multiple-time champions of just 14 players to accomplish the feat in the previous 107 years of the championship. That list includes some prominent names in both professional and amateur golf including the aforementioned-trophy namesake, Mr. Palmer.

With a win Kraft in this season’s event can also enter some additional rarified air with some other well-known names including R. Jay Sigel (Aronimink Golf Club), who has won the most times with four victories followed by three-time winners Bob Ford (Oakmont Country Club) and Gene Fieger (Overbrook Golf Club). The latter three golfers are the only players to date to win more than twice. Other notable winners have been former PGA tour players Tommy Armour, Johnny Farrell and Stu Ingraham (Overbrook Golf Club). Armour and Farrell were the 1927 and 1928 U.S. Open champions, respectively, and are members of the World Golf hall of Fame.