21st Super-Senior Amateur Championship: Round One

Smeraglio, Vassil share lead at Little Mill

MARLTON, N.J. — A pair of former Senior Amateur Championship victors shares the 18-hole lead in the 21^st Super-Senior Amateur Championship.

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LuLu Country Club’s Glenn Smeraglio (2017) and Country Club of Scranton’s Michael Vassil (2012) carded respective even-par 72s Monday at a steamy Little Mill Country Club (par 72, 5,980 yards). The event is utilizing the Blue and White courses at the 27-hole Marlton, N.J. facility.

The Super-Senior Amateur Championship is a two-day, 36-hole event.

Smeraglio and Vassil, along with Merion Golf Club’s Joseph Roeder, the reigning Delaware Senior Amateur Champion, represent the final pairing, which tees off in Round Two at 9:40 a.m. Tuesday.

The co-leaders took different highways to the top of the leaderboard Monday. Accuracy off the tee and short-putt efficiency highlighted Smeraglio’s performance. Vassil, on the other hand, only registered two fairways on the day, relying on resets from the rough and speed control on Little Mill’s tiered and treacherous greens.

Michael Vassil

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Glenn Smeraglio

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“I played pretty solid,” Smeraglio, 66, of Oreland, Pa., said. “I made sure to give myself a third shot on the par 5s. Instead of being greedy and ending up in a bunker or something, I kept myself between 80 and 100 yards. I missed a lot of shorter birdie putts. I could’ve really gone deep today, but that’s the way it goes.”

“It was definitely [a day] of scraping it around,” Vassil, 69, of Dalton, Pa., said. “I was in enough trouble that I didn’t hit a whole lot of greens. I saved par three or four times from greenside bunkers, got it up-and-down another two or three times. Short game and putting is what made the score today.”

Smeraglio, the reigning Pennsylvania Golf Association Super-Senior Player of the Year, opened with a birdie on No. 1 (par 4, 284 yards), where he hit a 54-degree wedge 100 yards to four feet. He also birdied the par 5, 475-yard No. 7 by sticking a 60-degree wedge from 70 yards to a foot. Little Mill nipped on the next hole (par 3, 153 yards); Smeraglio’s 8-iron landed flag high but released to the back fringe. He then totaled three putts for bogey. Smeraglio also bogeyed No. 16 (par 4, 355 yards) by missing a three-footer.

“I had too much respect or not enough respect for the downhillers, so I couldn’t get the ball to stop close to the hole,” Smeraglio said. “By the way, that’s a tribute to the greens here. They are in tremendous shape.”

Smeraglio identified No. 3 (par 4, 368 yards) as the round’s critical moment. Following a necessary punch-out from a wooded area, Smeraglio canned a downhill, left-to-right 20-footer to save par.

Unlike Smeraglio, Vassil, starting on the Blue Course (second nine), opened with a bogey on No. 10 (par 5, 465 yards). A wayward drive right immediately put Vassil behind the proverbial 8-ball. He failed to execute a sand save from the left greenside bunker. Vassil reclaimed the lost stroke on No. 7, where he drilled a 9-iron 120 yards to four feet.

“My game has been a lot like this, only not recovering and not saving myself. I’ve actually been really struggling on the greens. Today I putted well,” Vassil said. “The greens were fabulous. I had the speed right all day long, whether it was a 30-foot two putt or a six-foot par putt. I felt comfortable. I haven’t had that a whole lot this year.”

A putter change is the difference. Vassil dusted off a Taylormade Spider he left in the closet for four months.

Being a co-leader is charted Super-Senior Championship territory for Vassil. He held this position two years ago at North Hills Country Club. Vassil ultimately lost to Greg Osborne in a sudden-death playoff for the title.

“I definitely need to hit the ball off the tee better, and I need to continue to make putts,” Vassil said. “I’ve been around playing some good rounds. It’s either been one bad swing that turns into a double or triple bogey, or not saving myself on the putting green.”

GAP success is charted territory for Smeraglio. He is a former Middle-Amateur Champion (2011), two-time Joseph H. Patterson Cup Champion (1998, 2008) and three-time Silver Cross Award winner (2000-01, 2008). In addition to his 2017 Senior Amateur Championship title, Smeraglio also twice earned the Senior Silver Cross Award (2016-17) and Francis B. Warner Cup (2016, 2018).

Eighteen holes separate the Super-Senior Division sophomore from another benchmark.

“The course will probably play harder tomorrow I imagine. That’s good. I like that,” Smeraglio said.

Super-Senior Silver Cross Award
Smeraglio trails Hershey’s Mill Golf Club’s Don Donatoni by a stroke in the Super-Senior Silver Cross Award race. The Super-Senior Silver Cross Award is emblematic of the Francis B. Warner Cup, Frank H. Chapman Cup and Super-Senior Amateur Championship.

GAP
Celebrating Amateur Golf since 1897, GAP, also known as the Golf Association of Philadelphia, is the oldest regional or state golf association in the United States. It serves as the principal ruling body of amateur golf in its region. The organization’s 345 Member Clubs and 130,000 individual members are spread across Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland. The GAP’s mission is to promote, preserve and protect the game of golf.