SEND IN YOUR NEWS AND NOTES: All members of the MGWA, with items for our newsletter, are urged to e-mail them to Chuck Stogel (chstogel@aol.com).
ORDER DISCOUNTED MEMBER TICKETS FOR AWARDS DINNER
The MGWA’s 70th National Awards Dinner is scheduled for Tuesday, June 21st, at Westchester Country Club, Harrison, NY, with a special offer of discounted tickets available exclusively to association members. Up to two tickets at $175 each, nearly 60% less than the price of a regular ticket, may be ordered by each member. Seating will be limited, so order your tickets now. Tickets may be ordered online via the MGWA website (metgolfwriters.org). To place your order, log on to the website, click on “Awards Dinner” on the top bar and then “2022 Awards Dinner” to access the Member Order Form (the member order form won’t be visible if you’re not properly logged in).
Honorees for the event include: Gold Tee Award — Dottie Pepper, a 17-time winner on the LPGA Tour and current CBS golf broadcaster; Paul Dillon Distinguished Service Award — Mike Davis, former USGA CEO; Lincoln Werden Golf Journalism Award — MGWA vice president Mark Cannizzaro, New York Post; and Winnie Palmer Award — MGWA Board member Ann Liguori, author, broadcaster and founder of the charitable Ann Liguori Foundation. Other award winners will be announced shortly. Over the years, the MGWA Awards Dinner has helped raise millions for the association’s charitable beneficiaries, which include Caddie Scholarship programs in the Metropolitan New York area, the MGA Foundation, and the Dave Marr Journalism Scholarship at Columbia University.
SIGNUPS FOR MILL RIVER MEETING UNDERWAY
Registration Deadline for Quill & Tee GC is May 12th
The entry process to attend our first MGWA meeting/outing of the 2022 season —scheduled Tuesday, May 24th, at the Mill River Club, Oyster Bay, LI — is underway. Mill River is the first of six planned gatherings for the Met Golf Writers this season. Competition that day features our President’s Cup handicap event for Quill & Tee GC members, along with Nearest to the Pins for everyone. Registration is handled online at the MGWA website (metgolfwriters.org); the deadline to sign up is 3:00 pm on Thursday, May 19th, but please register earlier if you can. Use your member ID and Password to log on and go to the “Meetings and Outings” section, then click on the links for the Mill River info and signup form.
Registration also is being conducted for the MGWA members-only Quill & Tee Golf Club. A club without real estate, the Q&TGC provides a variety of benefits, including exclusive competitions at our scheduled get-togethers and GHIN handicapping services. For more information and to sign up, please log on to the MGWA website (metgolfwriters.org), then click on “Meetings & Outings,” followed by clicking on to “2022 Quill & Tee Golf Club.” The Q&TGC roster and GHIN handicap segment has been updated for 2022 with new and renewing membership; anyone who has not yet renewed has been dropped from the roster (but will be reinstated as soon as your 2022 Q&T dues are paid).
Here is the rest of the MGWA meeting schedule following Mill River:
Monday, June 27th, Knollwood CC, Elmsford NY (new ownership, management, considerable course and clubhouse renovations; MGWA Pinehurst)
Wednesday, August 10th, Westchester Hills GC, White Plains NY (complete Rees Jones renovation; Q&T Better Ball, with MGA Four Ball Championship qualifying)
Monday, August 29th, Summit Club at Armonk, NY (new club re-open, large-scale re-do by Rees Jones; Q&T Club Championship and Q&T Member-Guest)
Thursday, September 29th, Forest Hill Field Club, Bloomfield, NJ (1927 AW Tillinghast; undergoing renovations by Tom Kite and Billy Fuller; MGWA Team Shootout)
Monday, October 17th, Bethpage Black course, Farmingdale, LI (site of 2025 Ryder Cup)
HARRISON MEADOWS IS NOW OPEN
The first new daily fee golf club to open in Westchester in nearly 15 years, Harrison Meadows welcomed its first golfers in April and, for now, it will be available only to Harrison, NY, residents and their guests. The course, which has been on the property since 1917, was most recently known as Willow Ridge CC. When the private club went up for sale by the members, the town of Harrison stepped in and took it over last year and hired Troon Golf to manage it as a semi-private facility.
Residents of the town will be able to join as annual passholders at several levels. For now, daily fee play also will be limited to Harrison residents and their guests, although that may change once the pressure on the tee sheet is established, according to General Manager Patrick Wynn. He and the new head pro, Nick Schremser, came to the club from Mansion Ridge, in Monroe, NY, another Troon-managed property.
Par on the course is 71, with five par-3s and four par-5s. With a 71.3/140 course rating/slope from the tips and water a factor on half the holes, Harrison Meadows can be difficult, although multiple tees make it playable for shorter hitters.
(From Dave Donelson, Westchester Magazine)
PEOPLE, PLACES, ETC.
PGA Tour rookie Brandon Wu (pictured) of Scarsdale, NY, shot a bogey-free final round 63 on May 1st to finish T2 in the Mexican Open with a 72-hole total of 268 (16-under-par), just one shot back of World No. 2 Jon Rahm. The 8-under 63 was a tournament course record at Vidanta and represents Wu’s career-best single round on Tour. Wu, 25, a 2019 Stanford University grad with a degree in Engineering, collected $552,367 from a total purse of $7.3 million, boosting his seasonal earnings to $893,993 and his FedEx Cup ranking to No. 77. The second-place finish is Wu’s second Top 10 on Tour this season, following a T3 in the Puerto Rico Open . . . 
Megha Ganne (pictured), 18, of Holmdel, NJ, has been selected to play on the eight-member U.S. team in the women’s amateur Curtis Cup matches against a counterpart team from Great Britain/Ireland. The competition is scheduled June 10-12 at Merion GC, Ardmore, PA . . . Four golfers from the Metropolitan section will be among the 20 club pros teeing it up for the first round of the PGA Championship on May 19th in Tulsa, OK, having earned a spot with a top-20 finish in April at the PGA National Club Pro Championship in Austin, TX. The four pros: Alex Beach, Westchester CC; Paul Dickinson, Atlantic GC; Dylan Newman, Brae Burn CC; Casey Pyne. Stanwich Club . . . “Driven: The Danny Edwards Story,” written by the former pro golfer, race car driver and business entrepreneur in conjunction with co-author Bob Denney, and with a foreword by Johnny Miller, is now available from Classics of Golf (www.classicsofgolf.com) and publisher/MGWA member Michael Beckerich. Price in hard copy is $24.95; the book also is available in e-Book format for Kindle and Apple at $9.95 . . . The Met Golf Association, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary this season, has increased the purse for the 2022 Met Open Championship Presented by Callaway to $200,000. The boost is a $50,000 increase over the previous total, which had been in place since 2007. First prize in the 54-hole event also has been raised to $36,500. The 107th edition of the Met Open is scheduled for August 23-25 at Bethpage State Park’s Black Course . . . Former President Donald Trump’s company can keep running the New York City-owned Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point Park, a public-access golf course in the Bronx, a judge ruled April 8th, saying New York City offered a baseless rationale for canceling the Trump Organization’s contract after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last year. The ruling sends the matter back to the city “for further proceedings,” according to the Associated Press. The city’s Law Department said it was disappointed in the decision and was reviewing legal options. The Trump Organization declared the decision a victory for the company and “a win for justice.” Also following the Capitol insurrection, the PGA of America announced it was canceling the PGA Championship that had been scheduled for this month at Trump National GC in Bedminster, NJ . . . Meanwhile, four venues on the upstart LIV Golf Tour’s inaugural eight-event series this season are scheduled for courses in the United States, including a stop July 29-31 at Trump National GC in Bedminster. The LIV Tour — which represents the Roman numeral for “54” and the lowest possible score if every hole was birdied on a par-72 course — is headed by Greg Norman as commissioner and is being funded by a Saudi Arabian fund. Each event will feature 12 teams of four players competing both as a foursome and as individuals over 54 holes for purses ranging from $20-25 million. The Tour tees off June 9-11 at the Centurion Club in Hertfordshire, near London, England . . . WELCOME NEW MGWA MEMBERS: Debert Cook, African American Golfers’ Digest, debertcook@aol.com . . . Rebecca Gaona, New Jersey State Golf Association, rgaona@njsga.org . . . Larry Munck, Colliers International, lmunck818@gmail.com.