Courtesy of WPGA
There are varying opinions on the home-field advantage for golfers.
Playing a big tournament on your home course is either an advantage to be celebrated or a yoke around a golfer’s neck that’s hard to deal with.
Put Adam Scuilli's advantage column with an emphatic “oh yeah.”
Scuilli, 40, took advantage of his local knowledge of Chartiers Country Club and posted rounds of 67-68 for a 135 total and a three-shot victory over Greensburg’s Kevin Fajt in the 36th Western Pennsylvania Golf Association's Mid-Amateur Championship.
“A lot, huge actually,” Scuilli said of his home course advantage. “Especially here. There are so many trap doors around here. It’s like a haunted house.”
The victory was Scuilli’s first big win and means a lot to him because it’s a WPGA event. He’s in sales for building projects and the win will be one he’ll remember for a long time.
“The closest I’d come before was losing in a playoff in a U.S. Mid-Am qualifier a few years ago,” Scuilli said.
How good was the CCC member on this day?
How about 11 birdies in 36 holes? Many of those came off the face of Scuilli’s putter, which was red-hot on the bright warm afternoon.
“I hit a few close but it was all of those 4-5 footers for par to keep the momentum going,” he laughed. “Bottom line is I putted great today. I also made a few 10-15 footers, too. I started bogey, bogey this morning but I chipped in a couple times and all in all it was a very good day.”
Scuilli noted he didn’t play college golf and just a bit in high school.
“I learned to enjoy practicing. I put hours into practicing,” he said. “And at age 20, I started realizing the benefits and it’s really been good for me and my game. I’ve been fortunate and this is a great validation of what I’ve been trying to accomplish.”
Fajt made seven birdies over the course of the day. He made a run at Scuilli a couple times but he just couldn’t run him down. But that didn’t diminish his opinion of his game.
“I played pretty well today and have been playing pretty well recently,” Fajt said.
Indeed he has, especially in light of how he’ll be leading a group of a half-dozen qualifiers into the U.S. Mid-Am Sept. 25-30. Fajt, Kevin Koerbel, Jimmy Ellis, Brett Young and Andrew Hodge all with be competing at Sankaty Head Golf Club on Nantucket Island in Mass.
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ABOUT THE
WPGA Mid-Amateur
The Mid-Amateur Championship was started
in
1985 for amateur golfers residing in western
Pennsylvania who are twenty-five years of
age or
older. The event is thirty-six holes of stroke
play.
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