STATE COLLEGE — The 17th annual Shaner and JB Griffin Memorial Foundation Golf Classic will be held Thursday, Aug. 10, and Friday, Aug. 11, at Toftrees Golf Resort. Over the past 15 years, the tournament has raised more than $586,000 to support the community.
The golf classic will benefit the JB Griffin Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit formed to provide financial support to charitable organizations that assist people in need. This year, the foundation will distribute funds to the Jana Marie Foundation, the Cancer Survivors Association, Centre Helps and the Tides program.
The tournament — being held for the first time at Toftrees, which recently was rated the No. 4 golf course in Pennsylvania — will feature a scramble format with a shotgun start at 1 p.m. on Aug. 10. Registration opens one hour before the start and lunch also will be served at noon. A social will be held from 6 to 9 p.m.
The tournament continues Aug. 11 with shotgun starts at 7:30 a.m. and 1 p..m. Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be available. Registration will open one hour before the start time for each flight.
Each team will consist of four players, and participants can enter as individual golfers, twosomes or foursomes.
For $20 per team, golfers can participate in the sixth annual Red Solo Cup Challenge, a bean bag toss tournament that is limited to 50 contestants. The winning team will receive a trophy and $500. The challenge honors JB Griffin who, with his son Kevin, won the first Red Solo Cup Challenge.
There also will be a closest-to-the-pin contest Aug. 10 featuring glow-in-the-dark golf balls on the driving range.
An awards dinner will be held immediately following tournament play. Spouses and friends not playing in the tournament may purchase dinner wristbands for $25 per person. Guest reservations must be paid in advance. Golfers will receive dinner wristbands in their registration packets.
Due to liquor license guidelines, all players and guests must be at least 21.
One registered golfer will go home the winner of a cash drawing on both days of the tournament. All registered golfers will have a chance to step up to the tee, hit a hole-in-one and win a new Mercedes or Audi. Team prizes and individual skill prizes also will be awarded.
COMING UP ACES, AGAIN AND AGAIN
If you have never had a hole-in-one, something that every golfer dreams of, you might want to make the trek to the Philipsburg Elks Country Club where there were five aces July 20 through 31.
The most recent player to record an ace was Ron Eiler. He managed a hole-in-one on the par-3, 176-yard ninth hole using a driver July 31. Eiler’s playing partners were Greg Baughman, John Frank and Robert Smith.
The four other lucky golfers to record holes-in-one over 12-day stretch were Carter Fischer, Arch Myers, Sam Peterson and Peter Chieppor.
CPGA ANNOUNCES EVENT RESULTS
A few bursts of rain couldn’t stop 55 golfers on the North Central PGA Men’s Tour, as the beautiful Tyoga Country Club hosted the league’s sixth event of the year.
In the division for 50 to 59 year olds, Gary Dolan, of Belles Springs Golf Club, shot a 72 to best a field of 11 golfers and win overall medalist honors for the week. This was Dolan’s first win of the season.
White Deer’s Bruce Hoover, Shade Mountain’s Tim Jordan and the home course’s Tom Mitchell shared the distant silver with rounds of 80.
Bucknell’s Jeff Ranck and Tim Harpster tied with rounds of 78 to win the 60-to-69-year-old group. Clinton Country Club’s Rick Evertt placed third with a 79. Mountain View’s Bob Stonebraker posted a 90, while teammate Mark Doyle carded a round of 95.
In the 70-to-79-year-old group, Bob Mogel, of Tyoga, made the home course proud, firing a 75 to cruise by the field of 20 to a five-stroke victory.
The 80-and-older division hosted the second consecutive duel between White Deer’s Pete Reasner and Bucknell’s Boyd Mertz. After Mertz won last week, Reasner fired a 97 to win the division and take home his fourth top prize of the season.
The NCPGA makes its next stop Wednesday, Aug. 16, at Belles Springs Golf Club with a 1 p.m. shotgun start. Interested golfers can register at www.ncpga.net.
NITTANY C.C. HOLDS MEMBER-GUEST EVENT
The team of Justin Leiter and Mike Braniff posted a two-day score of 128 to win the gross division of the Nittany Country Club’s member-guest event, while the duo of Scott Gray and Wes Mauger carded a 36-hole score of 125 to claim the net division.
The gross division runner-up team consisted of Dave Myers and John Previte, with a two-round total of 133, followed by Ron Benton and Chris Snare with 137, Sam McCartney and Craig Russell with 138, Mark Johnson and Josh Leitzell with 140 and Ken Lannan and Dave Miller with 141.
A tie resulted for second place in the net division, with the duos of Mike Hoy and Chip Fogelman and Glenn Heckman and Tom Urban carding scores of 127. Fourth, with a 129, was the team of Gary Struble and Mark Doyle, followed by Jeff Ort and Phil Brumbaugh in fifth with a 130. Two teams tied for sixth with 36-hole scores of 131: Jim Bierly and Cody Smith and Marlan Bowersox and Kent Smith.
SKYTOP MOUNTAIN HOSTING PAR-3 CHALLENGE
The Skytop Mountain Golf Club is holding a par-3 challenge Sunday, Aug. 13, using a 1 p.m. shotgun start.
All 18 holes on the golf course will be transformed into par-3 holes. The price of $40 per player includes cart and prizes and there will be an optional cash skins game available during the event. Interested golfers can contact the club’s pro shop at (814) 692-4249.
CLASSIC GOLF QUOTES TO MAKE YOU SMILE
Raymond ‘Bud’ O’Brien, of Philipsburg, recently submitted these humorous golf quotes, sure to tickle any duffer’s funny bone:
■ ‘Golf is like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture.’ — Winston Churchill
■ ‘It took me 17 years to get 3,000 hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.’ — Babe Ruth
■ ‘Columbus went around the world in 1492. That isn’t a lot of strokes when you consider the course.’ — Lee Trevino
■ ‘These greens are so fast I should hold my putter over the ball and hit it with the shadow.’ — Sam Snead
■ ‘If you think it’s hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.’ — Jack Lemmon
■ ‘If you’re caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron.’ — Lee Trevino
■ ‘The people who gave us golf and called it a game are the same people who gave us bag pipes and called it music.’ — Anonymous
■ ‘I would like to deny all allegations by Bob Hope that during my last game of golf, I hit an eagle, a birdie, an elk and a moose.’ — Gerald Ford
■ ‘After all these years, it’s still embarrassing for me to play on the American golf tour. Like the time I asked my caddie for a sand wedge and he came back 10 minutes later with a ham on rye.’ — Chi Chi Rodriguez
