21st Stroke Play Championship

Huntsville’s Werner wins in Scranton debut

CLARKS SUMMIT, Pa. — What Nick Werner saw for the first time Monday, he clearly liked.

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Werner carded a 3-under-par 69 to capture the 21^st Stroke Play Championship at the Country Club of Scranton (par 72, 6,785 yards). Quite the debut.

“I love it. The course is in really good shape,” Werner, 17, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., said. “It’s really beautiful here. It’s also very difficult. The greens, I heard from other people, that they’re very tricky, and I found that to be very true.”

In four days, Werner, a rising senior at Wyoming Seminary College Prep School, will travel to Michigan to compete in his first national championship: the U.S. Junior Amateur at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills. He viewed Monday as a tune-up.

“Just by looking online, I saw that [Country Club of Scranton] plays very similar to [Oakland Hills] in terms of the greens being difficult, the shaved edges. I figured I could work on hitting those tour shots around the greens,” Werner, a Huntsville Golf Club member, said. “Middle of the green isn’t always the worst spot to be. That’s what I’m taking away from this. I was playing smart golf in my opinion. I wasn’t playing too conservative. I wasn’t taking dumb lines off the tee.”

Werner’s Scranton orientation started as textbook. After splitting the fairway with a towering drive, the long-hitting lefty lifted a wedge 50 yards to four feet for birdie on No. 1 (par 4, 402 yards). The Scranton sight lines strained Werner’s momentum halfway through his round. A clean pick from the right fairway bunker on No. 9 (par 4, 353 yards) put Werner in peril — a swale some 70 feet from the flagstick. He three putted for bogey. Thinking more space existed left on No. 10 (par 4, 406 yards), Werner instead found fescue. He escaped with a 60-degree wedge, only to then miss a 15-footer for par.

A pair of par 5s granted Werner subpar salvation. A two-putt birdie unfolded on No. 12 (par 5, 484 yards) after Werner reached the green in two strokes with a 9-iron from 170 yards. Perhaps No. 14 (par 5, 530 yards) yielded his shot of the day. Well, Werner snapped a photo to memorialize it anyway.

Standing behind an imposing tree, Werner grabbed an 8-iron. High lie in the rough, hit it short of the green and hope it rolls. Maximum swing power initiated. Werner’s 8-iron from 220 yards stopped six feet from the hole location. He buried the eagle putt.

Werner capped his Scranton debut in style. As he approached No. 18 (par 5, 530 yards), Werner exclaimed, “This is awesome. Gorgeous hole.” The drive not so much. He steered it into right fairway bunker. Following extrication, Werner knocked a 50-degree wedge 135 yards to eight feet. Scranton’s contours, the 18^th green a perfect case study, can either cripple or christen. It did the latter on this day. Werner buried the right-to-left breaker for birdie, which proved to be the decisive stroke.  

“I’ve been putting a lot of hard work in through the spring and summer. I’m happy with how my game is feeling going into next week,” Werner said.

Even though his USGA debut is days away, Werner doesn’t plan to rest. For starters, he teamed with Michael Lugiano, who will also compete in the U.S. Junior Amateur, in Huntsville’s Partners Championship over the weekend. The young guns, giving 10 shots back to the field, placed third. Werner plans on 18 holes at Huntsville the next three days.

Then the Michigan caravan embarks on the near nine-hour road trip. He and his father Joe will take turns behind the wheel.

“I will be studying [Oakland Hills] no doubt. That’s what I’ll be looking at [when I’m the passenger], doing prep,” Werner said.

By virtue of his Stroke Play Championship victory, Werner earned exemptions for the 2025 BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship and Joseph H. Patterson Cup.

Senior & Super Senior
A pair of Wyoming Valley Country Club members prevailed in playoffs.

Art Brunn, Jr. defeated Jack Frost National Golf Club’s Bill Ianieri on the fourth playoff hole (No. 4, par 5, 490 yards) to capture the event’s Senior (par 72, 6,372 yards) title. Joseph Weiscarger edged Fox Hill Country Club’s Bob Gill to win the Super-Senior Division (par 72, 6,032 yards). Gill was unavailable for the playoff.

Brunn and Ianieri finished regulation tied at 1-over-par 73.

“It’s always nice to win. It was a long day,” Brunn, 57, of Hanover Township, Pa., said. “For me, I have a really bad [right] hip, a sciatic nerve injury. I’m hoping it gets better. It’s funny. For being injured, I’m playing better golf for when it’s not injured.”

On No. 4, Brunn, who also won the Senior title in 2017, faced a hanging lie on the precipice of the left fairway bunker. He laid up with a marvelous 5-iron to 25 yards short of the green. A crafty wedge left Brunn with a two-footer for birdie. Ianieri’s 20-footer to match drifted right.

A night to celebrate for the Brunn family. His daughter Arden won the Girls’ Division in the Lawler Junior Tour event at Elmhurst Country Club earlier in the day.

Playing in the penultimate group, Weiscarger, 66, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., managed to match Gill at 1-under-par 71.

“I’m very happy to do well enough to beat a talented field of Super-Senior golfers,” Weiscarger said. “Anytime you can come to the Country Club of Scranton and shoot near par, you feel fortunate. My hat’s off to Superintendent Aaron Girodano for doing a great job with the golf course. You had to respect the golf course. The greens were super but treacherous if you were out of position.”

The Stroke Play Championship is the premier individual championship in the Anthracite Golf Association arm of GAP. Country Club of Scranton has hosted the event for three consecutive years.

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 110,000 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.