Assistant professional Steve Delmar and the seemingly ageless Marty West, from Columbia Country Club, fashioned a 6-under-par 34-32–66 and won the Maryland State Golf Association’s 63rd Pro-Am championship at the windswept Cannon Club in Lothian, October 17.
The final event on the MSGA tournament schedule, it was originally scheduled for July but postponed because of a heavy rainstorm. This time, on a sunny, cool fall day, the 33 teams were buffeted by 25-30 mph winds.
Delmar, 31, a fifth-year pro at the Connecticut Avenue club, finished with five birdies and West, one, in their bogey-free tour of the par-72, 6,661-yard course in southern Anne Arundel county,
Most of the birdies were in the 10-12-foot range and at the 549-yard 18th, Delmar, the current Middle Atlantic PGA Section champion, had it 10 feet for eagle, but missed and had to settle for a tap-in birdie.
The victory for West, who has some 100 of them in a career spanning more than 50 years, was his second in the event, as he won with then-Columbia assistant pro Joe Vincent in 1971. Delmar’s best previous finish was a second place as an amateur.
Only six teams finished in the 60’s, as pro Christopher Nieto and Congressional CC member Keith Unikel, shot 67, and there were four teams at 69. Unikel, the current Congressional CC club champion and 1998 MSGA Open winner (he also contributed to the Middle Atlantic Golf Association’s victory against the Golf Association of Philadelphia in their annual Mason-Dixon Match last weekend) birdied the first three holes and later added two more, while Nieto had one birdie and the team had a bogey. Unikel’s best effort was a 25-foot birdie putt at No. 8.
“A lot of fairways and greens. . .and a lot of mudballs,” Unikel said. An all-day rain the day before provided the wet conditions.
The four teams at 69 were Zach Lese-Josh Williamowsky, Chris Oleson-Ron Thomas. Christian Owens-Tom Winegardner, and Bob Dolan-Richard Holland. Of the group, Dolan in 2016 was the only past Pro-Am winner. Williamowsky got his side a piece of the tie, as he hit a 7-iron shot to six feet to set up an eagle at the 18th.
