2025 Senior Amateur Preview

Pairings

Williamsport, PA - A very lengthy and impressive list of past awards and championships will be on full display when 125 players get together for the 66^th playing of the Pennsylvania Senior Amateur Championship. The event is set for the A.W. Tillinghast layout at Williamsport Country Club, Monday and Tuesday, August 4-5. The Pennsylvania Golf Association (PAGA) tournament is presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods.

High national rankings, player of the year honors and regional and state championships are among the accolades earned by the players in the field. Two competitions will take place to declare state champions in the senior (55-64 years of age) and super senior (65+ years of age) categories.

Carlisle Country Club’s Jeff Frazier is the defending champion. He is coming off an appearance in last week’s Pennsylvania Amateur missing the cut for the final day by one stroke. Currently ranked among the top 80 senior amateurs in the world according to the Society of Seniors latest ratings he was the Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP) 2024 Senior Player of the Year after winning the award in 2022 as well. He has won the last two GAP Senior Silver Cross awards as the low aggregate scorer in three of the organization’s senior “majors” and already has the GAP Brewer Cup title in his pocket this year.

Rick Stimmel (Connoquenessing Country Club) is the reigning PAGA Senior Player of the year outpointing Frazier for the title last year. It was the second-consecutive award for Stimmel who is currently rated 25^th among senior amateurs in the world ratings. He has won two 2025 PAGA titles already this season capturing the George Dressler Memorial to open the year and the overall Pennsylvania Open crown beating out professionals and amateurs in that event.

Sean Knapp (Hannastown Golf Club), who has won the Western Pennsylvania Golf Association (WPGA) Player of the Year 14 times and won six-straight PAGA player of the year honors before Stimmel’s two-year run is another player continually in the world rankings. Knapp won the Pa. Senior Amateur in 2018 and 2019 and was the runner-up four years in a row from 2020-2023.

A plethora of other players who could be in the hunt have had past success in the Senior Amateur including last year’s runner-up John Barry (Lancaster Country Club), GAP’s 2023 player of the year, Chris Fieger, Sr. (Heidelberg Country Club) and Ronan Culligan (Saucon Valley Country Club). The latter two tied for third place just behind the leaders last year.

Fieger is a past champion winning the event in 2020 and is a three-time GAP senior amateur winner and qualified for this season’s US Senior Open while Culligan has had success earning points to appear in the world rankings. Dave Blichar (Olde Homestead Golf Club) won the crown in 2022 and Glenn Smeraglio (LuLu Country Club) finished on top  in 2017. Throw in Overbrook Country Club’s Oscar Mestre who recently qualified for the US Senior Amateur Championships as well and was GAP’s 2021 player of the year and David Brown (St. Clair Country Club), the WPGA 2023 Amateur champion and the PAGA Senior Amateur titlist in 2021. Well, you get the idea so if you’re looking for an early favorite you might want to take a dark horse as plenty of others in the field have various titles to their names as well.

Arnie Cutrell (Greensburg Country Club), Bob Crnjarich (Allegheny Country Club), John Bearrie (Sunnehanna Country Club) and Neil Gordon (Doylestown Country Club) could be among those players to watch. Bearrie and Gordon are the other players in the event who have qualified for the US Senior Open.

Only two players have repeated since 1991 as Saucon Valley’s Robin McCool went back-to-back in 2014-15 and Knapp matched the feat in 2018-19. Consecutive titles have been won just five times since the event’s inception in 1960 with Oakmont Country Club’s A.J. Jordan being the only player to win three in a row.

There are fewer players in the super senior division but there is no less depth and past success among the players. The last three champions, including three-time winner Don Donatoni (Hershey’s Mill Country Club), and the top seven finishers from a year ago are in the field. Defending champion James Gavaghan (Commonwealth National Golf Club) shot an opening day even-par 71 to grab a lead he didn’t relinquish in 2024. The score, matched only by Bob Gill (Fox Hill Country Club) in the second round, was the lowest shot in the super senior competition.

Brian Rothaus (Five Ponds Golf Club) finished three shots back for his third runner-up showing in the last four years. Donatoni, who last won in 2019, finished third last year, followed by Gill, Steve Meyer (Rolling Green Golf Club), Joe Weiscarger (Wyoming Valley Country Club) and Gary Daniels (Applebrook Golf Club).

Donatoni is a seven-time GAP super senior player of the year and captured GAP’s Chapman Memorial in July. Weiscarger was the super senior winner of PAGA’s Dressler in late April.  Bucknell Golf Club’s Ben Cook may be another player to watch as he is a newcomer to the super senior category and, as a past member, is very familiar with the Williamsport layout.

The super senior event is in its 23^rd year and has had only two consecutive winners. Jay Howson, Jr. (St. David’s Golf Club) won three in a row from 2009-11 and Duke Delcher (Berkeley Hall Club), who is another competitor with past successes on the state and national level, was the champion in 2017 and 2018 and is entered in the 2025 tournament.