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PGA Junior Tour another huge success at BHCC

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Ron Baker, Butch Brunner and the Belmont Hills Country Club golf staff want to expand the game of golf.

And they’ve found that there’s no better way of attempting to do that than going after youngsters and introducing the game to them as early as possible.

For the third straight summer, Belmont Hills Country Club served as the local host site for a PGA Junior Tour.

“We’re very, very happy with the program and we’re able to get a lot of kids involved,” Baker said.

The league, which features 75 kids ranging in age from 7-13, began in early June and finished up with a parents event earlier this month.

“The (schedule) of the league is nice because it’s allowed us to help use the league to promote a junior-high golf league,” Baker said. “We’re running this program and then kids who are still really interested and want to continue can go into the junior high program.”

When Belmont Hills hosts its initial season of the program, a solid 50 players signed up. That jumped to 65 in 2019 and now it’s up to 75 for this summer.

“Overall, I think it’s the fifth year for the PGA to run the program,” Baker said. “The format of this is scramble, so it’s a very easy way for kids to learn the game of golf. Plus, it’s similar to like little baseball or softball where each kid is on a team, get a shirt with a number on the back and some of the older kids are able to mentor some of the younger kids, so everyone can really benefit.”

During the junior league, each kid plays in a 9-hole scramble, but that’s broken down into three, three-hole scrambles. Each kid is on a team of three, but it’s played as twosomes. The kid who is sitting out the respective three holes helps his or her teammates in terms of lining up putts, repairing divots, etc.

“The nine holes are broken up into three hole matches and each of those is worth a point,” Baker said. “Every kid plays at least three holes and some will play the full nine.”

The teams are the Fleetwoods, which is comprised of Bruno DeFranco, Carsyn Crooks, Dylan Pielech,Ethan Kingery, Evan Baker, Graham Spence, Kamden Kinyo, Liam Bendel, Lucy DeFranco, Ramsey Butler and Rocco DeFranco.

The Slaying Steves roster includes: Andrew Abel,Dash DeFranco,Eli Hepburn, Evan Fix, Jackson Dutton, Jonah Hepburn, Luke Stack, Luke Swan, Mason DelGuzzo, Nathan Fatula, Owen Hepburn, Phillip Zapp and Z.A. DeFranco.

The Thunderbirdies are: Aaron Baker, Alex Norman, Beau Mooney, Brodi Foster, Delaney Florence, Dylan B Davenport, Ethan Turner, Leo Zambori, Michael Brown, Nolan Zambori, Ryan Mooney and Sophia Turner.

The Golf Warriors are Brady Gallagher, Caden Blacker, Caleb Gooch, Charlie Gooch, Dominic Scarnecchia, Dylan Gallagher, George Dormas, Grant Gayvont, Julian Kingery, Lauren Moran, Elizabeth Steele, Maddie Steele and Sydney Smith.

The Angry Birdies consist of Brady Kerr, Anthony Mixer, Gabriella Taylor, Helen Steele, Jackson Conway, Mavrik Malin, Nash Roberts, Olivia Baker, Olivia Poziviak, Teddy Steele, Vincent Demarchi and Von Crall.

The Putter Pirates are comprised of Abigial Wheeler, Adriyanna Turkal, Alaina Schumacher, Ashton Golver, Camden Judg, Chase Bacchus, Claire Wheeler, Coltyn Harman, Dominic Kokiko, Mason Smith, Matthew Brown, Noah Kokiko and Owen O’Connell.

“The kids have definitely improved,” Baker said. “They work hard on their chipping, putting and we try to get them out (on the course) as much as possible. You really start to see the improvement in the older kids because it’s usually when they’re hitting 10 or 11 they’re really starting to get bigger and stronger and they can see the improvements happening.”

Because of COVID-19 and some of the restrictions on gatherings, Belmont Hills has lost some of its outside golf events. However, for the most part, the club’s golf season went unaffected, according to Baker.

“We were able to be open the entire time and with the pandemic, there wasn’t much else for people to do (recreationally),” Baker said. “Being that golf is outside and very easy to socially distance, it allowed us to pull it off. We had most of our member events, including our club championship (which was won by Rico Simonetti).”

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