Back Creek’s McClaskey takes Super-Senior title in Warner (Gross)

NORTH HILLS, Pa. – Back Creek GC’s Charles McClaskey picked up right where he left off.

  The reigning Super-Senior Player of the Year carded a 1-over-par 72 to take the Super-Senior title in the 77th Francis B. Warner Cup (Gross) at Lu Lu CC (par 71, 6,043 yards) Thursday. McClaskey, of Elkton, Md., is on a mission to retain his 2010 honor.

  “I want to do it again,” he said. “Those were my expectations coming in. They always say it’s lucky the first time and you need to do it a second time to validate it. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

  After registering two bogeys on a four-hole stretch, McClaskey, 72, rebounded with a red figure on No. 6 (par 3, 162 yards). Facing feisty winds, he knocked his 6-iron to six feet.

  “The winds were tough,” McClaskey said. “The greens were tough. It’s hard to figure out the speed of the greens around here. One green you get on, it’ll be slower than the devil and the next one, you get in the wrong place and it’ll be faster than the devil. It’s tricky.”

  McClaskey stayed solid on his inward tour. He converted six consecutive pars before encountering trouble on the elevation-altering No. 16 (par 3, 400 yards). McClaskey steered his tee shot into the left fairway bunker. Seeing a “perfect lie,” he attempted to escape with a pitching wedge, but it didn’t work out as well as he envisioned.

  “I hit it heavy,” McClaskey said. He then knocked a wedge 40 yards to 10 feet, but left his downhill putt short.

  Redemption arrived on the following hole. McClaskey, who also captured the 2010 Senior Amateur Championship Super-Senior title and the Super-Senior Silver Cross, drilled his 60-degree wedge 50 yards to 10 feet. He executed the uphill 12-footer for birdie. Despite three offseason surgeries, McClaskey stands poised for another banner year.

  “I had good expectations coming into today, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do,” he said. “Out here, I hit a lot of good shots.”

  Francis B. Warner of Philadelphia Cricket Club served as secretary-treasurer for the Golf Association of Philadelphia for 18 years. After his death in 1933, the Association started the Francis B. Warner Cup, an 18-hole, stroke play Senior event, as an ongoing tribute in his memory. Lu Lu CC has hosted the event five times, most recently in 1997, when St. Davids GC’s Jay Howson, Jr., the 2009 Super-Senior Player of the Year, triumphed with a score of 74.