2025 Men's Players of the Year

2025 PAGA MEN’S PLAYERS OF THE YEAR

For the second consecutive season, there was very little drama about which golfer would earn the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s W.C. Fownes, Jr. Amateur Player of the Year honor. With a sizeable cushion of 155 points in the 2025 standings, Nicholas Turowski (Hannastown Golf Club) earns the prestigious award that exemplifies the highest standards of excellence on the golf course in skill, sportsmanship, and etiquette in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Turowski, a sophomore at West Virginia University where he is a member of the golf team, piled up standout results last summer – with  a win in the 22^nd R. Jay Sigel Match Play Championship (a year after being ousted in the semifinals) and a ninth-place finish in the 112^th Amateur Championship.

"It means a lot to me, especially upon seeing some of the other people that have gotten this award," said Turowski. "I've looked up to them -- like Patrick Sheehan last year, who I lost to in the Sigel in 2024. So now that I'm Player of the Year it's a huge confidence boost and it feels great."

Turowski had a bit of a shift in his preparation this year that may have contributed to his success in a big way.

"I've started to take a different approach to tournament golf," explained Turowski. " Before this year, you could say I was a Range Rat -- that person who you'd see on the range all the time, hitting probably too many balls and working on something in my swing. And I feel like it took away some of my ability away to just see shots and trust my natural ability to go out and play. So this summer I said, "Nick, you're only going to play golf. You're not going to go to the range and practice." That's the approach I took and it has made a world of difference. I took a step away from the range and I've really relearned my game and the importance of every shot I make."

In the final match of the Sigel at Rolling Green Golf Club, Turowski (the 14th seed in the bracket) had to get past Amani D'ambrosio, who, like Turowski, was a semifinalist in the 2024 bracket. The two put on an incredible display, with Turowski finally claiming the title 2-up after the 17th hole.

"With Amani in the finals, we played pretty flawless golf," said Turowski. "There were no bogeys between us in all the holes we played and we were tied for the first eight holes. The golf course was unbelievable as well. Everyone told me when I was going out there that it was great and I just remember playing my first practice round and realizing it was just another one of those hidden gems in Pennsylvania. It was a really fun trip."

In the 2025 Senior Player of the Year standings, Connoquenessing Country Club’s Rick Stimmel continued his stratospheric levels of play and made it a three-peat, earning the honor for the third straight year and fourth time in his career. Stimmel tallied 1008.75 points in the standings, nearly 400 more than the closest competitor.  His 2025 PAGA resume included victories in the 18^th Senior Amateur Match Play Championship, the 21^st Art Wall Jr. Memorial, the 5^th Senior Open, and the 84^th George Dressler Memorial Championship.

"It's been a great run," said Stimmel. "Our season usually starts with the Dressler and to get off to an early start with a win is great, just getting it under your belt. Regardless of what level you're on, winning is hard. It's always hard. So my goal every year is to try to win once. Sometimes it's easier said than done, but in pretty much every PAGA event I played in this summer I ended up doing pretty well."

Stimmel's run in 2025 included highlights such as surviving a close bout with Chris Fieger Sr. in the Senior Match play finals, winning a playoff with Kevin Fajt in the Art Wall, charging up the leaderboard from four shots back in the Dressler, and the Senior Open, where he birdied 17 and 18 on the final day to finish as the only player under par.

"I'm most proud of the State Senior Open," said Stimmel. "It's such a good field. You're beating your peers of amateurs and professionals and it was a golf course (Gulph Mills Golf Club) that I hadn't seen for 15 years. I didn't really remember the course well and I just remember the weather being really bad but I posted a decent score and it held up. I was a little shocked about that one."

Stimmel keeps his skills sharp with plenty of golf as a snowbird in the winter months, and, as one might expect, he's found consistent success once again. In December of 2025 alone, he collected a pair of top five results in Florida: a fourth-place finish in the Dixie Senior Amateur Championship and a win in the Senior Division of the 42nd Ralph Bogart Tournament.

"I'm going to try to play in one tournament a month in the winter to try to keep some of the rust off," assured Stimmel. "And then come April we're back and ready to go again. I didn't play in a whole lot of events against the kids this year because I wanted to maybe concentrate on Senior golf but we'll see what the next year brings. I've been on a bit of a roll but every year I get older and there's always a new 55-year-old that comes in trying to stomp on us so I'm just trying to win as much as I can until they tell me I can't do it any more!"

The 2025 Super-Senior Player of the Year honors go to LuLu Country Club’s Glenn Smeraglio, who also collected a bevy of top finishes. He won the Super-Senior Division of the 21st Art Wall Jr. Memorial Championship by three strokes, added a third-place finish in the Super-Senior Division of the Senior Amateur, took fourth place in the Super-Senior Four-Ball with partner Christopher Clauson, and secured his spot on top of the Player of the Year leaderboard with a win in the 18^th Super-Senior Match Play Championship over Joseph Weiscarger.

"I just turned 65, and when you make the jump between divisions, whatever they may be, you're the rookie of the class," said Smeraglio. "Obviously you want to try to take advantage of that because we're all getting nothing but older. I played well at the Art Wall and then Joe and I had a tremendous finals in the Match Play, which we knew would seal up the player of the year. It's a year-long thing you work towards so I'm extremely happy. It really means a lot to me."

Smeraglio's year is perhaps even more impressive when you learn of the fact that he had both knees replaced last November.

"I really started to feel a lot stronger toward the late summer," recalled Smeraglio. " I think it showed in the tournaments I played in, where I was doing way better as the year went on -- so I'm going to attribute it to a little bit better health. Golf for me is an addiction. I've had it for 50 years. I enjoy practicing, I enjoy competing, and it's the only sport where you can be as old as dirt like me but still able to play against other guys around the same age and have absolutely great competition."