2010 USGA State Team Championship
2009 Championship Team
Nathan Smith (left), Sean Knapp (center), and Mike Van Sickle
The Pennsylvania Golf Association will be sending two-thirds of our championship winning team back to the USGA State Team Championship this year. Mike Van Sickle has turned professional, and is no longer eligible. Nathan Smith, Pinecrest Golf Club, and Sean Knapp, St. Jude Golf Club, kept their exceptional play going in 2010 and were selected for a third time. Artie Fink, Jr., Sinking Valley Country Club, will be the third player on the 2010 roster.
Team members are selected based on two years worth of W.C. Fownes, Jr. Player of the Year points. Points earned in 2010 were doubled and added to 2009.
The event will be held at Mayacama Golf Club, in Santa Rosa, California, on Sept. 13-15th. A Jack Nicklaus design, Mayacama Golf Club opened in 2001 on the former estate of “Peanuts” comic strip creator Charles M. Schulz. The club is located 65 miles north of San Francisco in the heart of wine country. Bodega Bay on the scenic Pacific Coast is 28 miles to the west.
This is the 9th USGA Men’s State Team Championship and the first USGA Championship to be conducted at
Mayacama Golf Club. The competition, as well as the Women’s State Team
Championship, grew out of the Association’s centennial anniversary in 1995. USGA
officials believed that a new championship, one in which each state could be
represented by amateur, non-college golfers, was an appropriate way to cap the
USGA’s year-long birthday celebration. The competition proved to be such a
success that the Association decided to continue conducting the championship
biennially.
They will play 18 holes of stroke play competition each day and the team total will be comprised of two best scores of three per day.
Best of luck to our returning champions as they try to complete the double!
