PREVIEW: 2021 Northeast Ohio Amateur Championship

91st NEO Am Returns to Windmill Lakes, Field Grows

Northern Ohio Golf AssociationThe Northern Ohio Golf Association’s second reinvention of the Northeast Ohio Amateur Championship is a success story in the making.

Originally known as the Plain Dealer Invitational when it began in 1931, back then the tournament was of significant interest not only to the area’s best amateur players, but to the general public as well. The region’s largest newspaper – and one of the largest newspapers in the country at the time – provided heavy promotion and reporting about each round of the tournament.

The height of the PD Invitational and its coverage came in 1953, when a young Arnold Palmer won the tournament with a record-setting score. Palmer’s victory earned front page headlines, with an action-packed game story and big above-the-fold photos.

Arnold Palmer 1953 Plain Dealer Invitational
Arnold Palmer putts at Shaker Heights Country Club during the final round of the 1953 Plain Dealer Invitational

Back in the earliest days of the tournament, future NOGA Hall of Fame member Tom Whiteway was the man to beat. He won a record-setting five NEO Am titles, in 1938, 39, 42, 43 and 47. Three-time winner Steve Pipoly took up that ‘best player’ mantle in 1945, 49 and 54, followed by another three-time winner and future NOGA Hall of Famer, Bob Shave Jr., who captured the Invitational in 1956, 58 and 59.

But over time, the region’s longest-running amateur golf championship began seeing smaller and smaller fields. The Plain Dealer was losing interest in golf and its own Invitational, as the newspaper turned its focus to the social turmoil of the 1960s.

Not wanting to see it die, the Northern Ohio Golf Association rescued the event and re-branded it in 1965 as the Northeast Ohio Amateur Championship.

TOURNAMENT DETAILS & ONLINE ENTRY: 2021 NEO Am >

For many years following the start of NOGA’s involvement, two or three different golf courses were selected as the host sites for the 72 holes of the championship. Not a rota of courses, mind you, but two or three different courses one year, then two or three different courses the following year.

In addition to the ever-changing host sites, equally unique was the scheduling of those four tournament rounds: play was often spread out over a week or two, like a Monday/Thursday/Monday, sometimes with an additional week in between one of those dates!

And during those many years, the final day of play would consist of 36 holes to complete the 72-hole tournament.

Regardless of the unconventional structure, NOGA’s reinvention of the NEO Am flourished for decades.

Joe Ungvary, Summit County Am ChampionJoe Ungvary Sr. of Akron set the competition standard soon after NOGA took over, helping the tournament to grow in stature. Another five-time NEO Am winner, he took the title in 1970, 72 and 73, then rounded out his run of five in 1981 and 84. Ungvary later won a national championship, taking the 1993 USGA Senior Amateur.

On the heels of Unvary’s run, longtime Canterbury Golf Club member Bob Fairchild of Avon Lake, another future NOGA Hall of Fame inductee, ran off three NEO Am titles of his own, in 1983, 87 and 88.

Doug HauensteinThen the third five-time winner of the Northeast Ohio Am, Doug Hauenstein of Aurora, won his handful of titles in 1989, 1991, 1992, 1998 and 2001.

Beginning in 1995, a Senior NEO Am Championship was added as a separate division within the event. Playing the more forward tees at the same courses on the same dates, the seniors played only 18 holes on the final day of the tournament to determine a 54-hole winner in that division. The addition of these senior players added numbers to the NEO Am fields.

Avon Lake’s Bob Miller dominated the Senior championships early, taking three victories in a row at the start, in 1995, 1996, 1997. Later, Jim Durr of Silver Lake matched that feat with three Senior NEO Am titles of his own, in 2014, 2017, 2019.

But eventually the drawn-out, multi-day format of the NEO Am conflicted with the changing lifestyle of modern times. The mid-2000s brought a decline in the number of players who entered the tournament, even more so in the years after the global financial troubles of 2008. To keep alive the long history of the region’s most well-known amateur golf tournament, something had to change. A second reinvention was required.

So in 2017, NOGA decided to pick a single golf course and play that course for 54 holes on three consecutive days, the first two of them on the weekend. That decision changed the nature of the championship, creating a wholly different feel. Competitors dialed in to the course and its conditions. Tension built as the event progressed by eliminating the long number of days between rounds.

StoneWater Golf Club in Highland Heights was the site first selected under this new format. StoneWater is a true championship course that requires strong play to score, as danger lurks on nearly every hole. Veteran player Rob Schustrich won there, beating out a growing number of college players attracted to the new promotion given to the event and to the consecutive days stroke play format.

Because of this new influx of college players, NOGA decided to add a Mid-Am flight to the NEO Am in 2018, giving players over age 25 a shot at such a title. The addition of a Mid-Am flight also attracted a few more new faces to the field.

Great Lakes Auto NetworkThen in 2019, NOGA reached an agreement with college golf coaching legend and course owner Herb Page to bring the NEO Am to Windmill Lakes Golf Club in Ravenna. Shortly after, NOGA reached an agreement with Great Lakes Auto to act as the presenting sponsor of the event.

The home course of the nationally-ranked Kent State University Golden Flashes men’s and women’s golf teams was no stranger to the NEO Am as a host site: the 6,936-yard par-70 layout had seen the NEO Am field visit seven times prior to this new return, including five straight years when the event first came to Windmill Lakes in 1982. But those seven past visits to Windmill were all for a single tournament round. Now it would be three consecutive rounds.

The choice of Windmill Lakes jump-started a growth in the field. In 2019, Miami Redhawks golfer Jack Herceg beat a field of 44 golfers, with 13 Seniors playing in that division (Durr’s third victory) and Chris Okeson of Lyndhurst winning the Mid-Am title.

Cade Breitenstine 2020 NEO Am Champion
Up-and-coming Kent State star Cade Breitenstine of Akron makes this par putt at the last to seal a six-shot win at the 2020 NEO Am.

Then in 2020, Kent State player Cade Breitenstine of Akron took the title by a whopping six shots, shooting a scorching 7-under par total score against a field of 68 players. 20 Seniors competed in that division won by Solon’s Monty Guest, and Michael Kelley came up from the Columbus suburb of Westerville to take the Mid-Am.

The 91st playing of the Northeast Ohio Amateur Championship presented by Great Lakes Auto returns to Windmill Lakes Golf Club in Ravenna for all 54 holes of the event for a third consecutive year. With young, talented college golfers as the last two winners, even more top-level competitors are expected to enter and contend in 2021.

It should be a shootout.

Because what player doesn’t want his name on a trophy next to that of Arnold Palmer?

TOURNAMENT DETAILS & ONLINE ENTRY: 2021 NEO Am >

NEO Am logo

FOR THE RECORD: Most NEO Am Victories

5 NEO Am Victories
Doug Hauenstein: 1989, 1991, 1992, 1998, 2001
Joe Ungvary Sr.: 1970, 1972, 1973, 1981, 1984
Tom Whiteway: 1938, 1939, 1942, 1943, 1947

3 NEO Am Victories
Bob Fairchild: 1983, 1987, 1988
Bob Shave Jr.: 1956, 1958, 1959
Steve Pipoly: 1945, 1949, 1954

2 NEO Am Victories
South Smith: 1974, 1975
Jim Hilderbrand: 1966, 1968
Harold Paddock: 1948, 1950
Maurice McCarthy: 1933, 1936

NEW for 2021: NEO AM FOR WOMEN

NOGA is launching a Women’s Northeast Ohio Amateur Championship in 2021! This new event will also be played at Windmill Lakes Golf Club in Ravenna, on June 16-17. Conducted at scratch in Championship and Senior Divisions, the tournament is open to female players age 19 and older with an official, active USGA GHIN Handicap of 9.4 or less. Players must reside in or attend college in Ohio to be eligible. ENTRY DETAILS HERE >

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Allen Freeman

Allen is a writer, photographer and editor for Northern Ohio Golf.

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