2026 Sigel Match Play Preview

CC of Scranton to host 23^rd edition of Sigel Match Play

For the eighth consecutive season a new Pennsylvania Match Play Champion will be decided when the 23^rd edition of the R. Jay Sigel Match Play Championship is held at the highly regarded Country Club of Scranton, July 6-8, 2026.

The event, presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods and hosted by the Pennsylvania Golf Association (PAGA), will consist of an opening day of 36 holes stroke play qualifying leading to 16 players advancing to match play for the final two days.

The 2025 champion, Nick Turowski (Hannastown Golf Club) is not in this year’s field so someone else will lift the trophy. The last player to win back-to-back at this event was current Walker Cup captain Nathan Walker winning the final two of his six Sigel titles in 2017 and 2018.

The Longue Vue Club’s Amani D’Ambrosio runner-up a year ago at Rolling Green Golf Club after dropping a 2 & 1 decision to Turowski in the final leads a group of eight players who reached the match-play portion last season in this event.

Other players reaching the final 16 in the event in 2025 include Jake Haberstumpf (Saucon Valley Country Club), who recently finished as the runner-up in the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s (GAP) Amateur and along with clubmate Thomas Young finished third in the state four-ball championship. Young was also a match-play qualifier last season along with Hunter Swidzinski (Olde Stonewall Golf Club), the medalist coming out of stroke play a year ago after shooting 67-68, also return.

Additional 2025 match-play participants competing this year, include Sam Feeney (Penn Oaks Golf Club), Mark Miller (Philadelphia Cricket Club), Nick Werner (Huntsville Golf Club) and Colin Smith (PAGA Individual member).

Brock Kovach (LedgeRock Golf Club), who won the PAGA season-opening Dressler Memorial, and combined with another LedgeRock performer, Zach Dilcher, to post a runner-up finish in the four-ball event will compete. So will Huntsville’s Logan Paczewski, who, along with Young, fell to Kovach in a four-hole playoff at the Dressler after finishing regulation in a three-way tie. Paczewski was GAP’s 2023 Joseph H. Patterson Cup victor.

There are several other players in the field with solid credentials like the Western Pennsylvania Golf Association’s 2024 Player of the Year Nathan Piatt (Oakmont Country Club), Hunter Stetson (Aronimink Golf Club), last year’s Patterson Cup champion, and Dave Mecca (Country Club of Scranton) who won GAP’s Mid-Amateur title in 2023. In addition, other Sigel entrants are Austin Lemieux (Allegheny Country Club), last season’s Mid-Amateur Championship runner-up as well as Matthew Mattioli (Pittsburgh Field Club) and Tim Peters (Toftrees Golf Resort), the 2025 Pennsylvania Amateur the third- and fourth-place finishers.

Three past champions are entered this year, Eric Williams (Glenmaura National Golf Club), the titlist in 2014 and runner-up in 2008, Josh Ryan (The 1912 Club) the winner in 2020 and Karl Frisk (Hanover Country Club) in 2023. So, the first day’s action will be a highly entertaining and long day to see who gets into the 16 openings in match play for a shot at the title.  

The event named in honor of one of the greatest amateur golfers of all time, Jay Sigel, will be played on the 7015-yard, par 72 Old Course at Scranton. The layout consisting of the Pines and Willows nines is rated in the top 10 of Golf Digest’s 2025-26 rankings of the state’s golf courses. Scranton, which also has a third nine-hole course, The Falls, has played host to many significant events in past seasons including two Pennsylvania Opens and three state Amateur championships. The last PAGA event at the club was the state’s Mid-Amateur Championship in 2022 won by Huntingdon Valley Country Club’s Andy Butler.