This Saturday and Sunday, two teams of 12 players will compete on the two beautiful courses at Westfield Country Club in the fourth playing of the Lewis Cup, the Northern Ohio Golf Association’s annual Amateurs vs. Seniors match play team competition.
The Lewis Cup is named after Warren, Ohio native Bob Lewis, a highly-accomplished player, coach, and captain. Lewis competed in 31 USGA championships, highlighted by three runner-up finishes (1980 U.S. Am, 1981 and 1984 U.S. Mid-Ams). He also competed in three U.S. Opens and seven Masters Tournaments, earning low-amateur honors in the 1987 Masters. Lewis played in four Walker Cup Matches, then captained two more. After retiring from competition, he volunteered many years as the head golf coach at Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills.
Lewis passed away in the Spring of 2021, shortly after receiving the Bob Jones Award, the USGA’s highest honor. Not long after and with the blessing of his family, NOGA created the Lewis Cup to honor Bob’s legacy.
A LOOK AT THIS YEAR’S MATCH-UPS
On paper, the 2024 edition of the Lewis Cup could be a nasty beat-down.
The GHIN Handicap Indexes of the 12 players who make up the 2024 NOGA Amateur Team totals a whopping +27.4. That’s PLUS 27.4, as in giving nearly 28 shots back to par. In fact, only two players of the Amateur side’s 12 have an Index not on the plus side – at 0.2 and 1.5. (Those guys are hackers, obviously. lol)
The NOGA Senior Team, on the other hand, checks in with a 12-player total GHIN Index of 7.2. In most competitions, putting together a team of 12 guys with a handicap total of seven would be a stout representation. Not so much in the fourth playing of the Lewis Cup.
The ‘young bucks’ vs. ‘wiley veterans’ will face off in two sets of nine-hole team match play sessions on Saturday, in four-ball and foursomes formats on the old-style South Course. Then on Sunday, the event finishes with 12 individual 18-hole matches on the rustic North Course.
So yes, this weekend’s match-ups could get lopsided based on the Index numbers listed on paper. But Cup matches aren’t played on paper.
LEADERBOARD: 2024 Lewis Cup >
PREVIOUS LEWIS CUP WINNERS
The Amateur Team has won the last two Lewis Cup matches. But those two wins came after the Senior Team ran roughshod over them for the inaugural title.
Last year, the Amateur Team rolled to a relatively easy three point victory. Already ahead by one point after Saturday’s team matches, the Amateurs took care of business on Sunday, winning the singles 7 to 5. The victory gave the Ams their second Lewis Cup title by a score of 13.5 to 10.5.
In 2022, the Cup came down to the last holes of the last match. The Amateurs began Sunday with a one-point lead over the Seniors once again, after Saturday’s four-balls and foursomes. The Amateurs played well in Sunday’s early singles matches, but the Seniors earned points in the later matches to catch up. Ultimately, it all came down to the two Captains – Senior Mark Borlin vs Am Brian Smith – playing in the final match to see which team would win the Cup. With the one-point advantage held by the Ams after Saturday, Borlin had to win the match to win the Cup. All tied after 16 holes, Smith hit a great shot at the par-3 17th hole to go 1-up, securing the Cup for the Ams. But Borlin birdied the last with a 25-foot putt to square their match, earning a roar of approval from the players looking on. Final score: Ams 12.5, Seniors 11.5.
In the inaugural 2021 event, the Senior Team won in a blowout. In the first nine-hole session on Saturday, the Seniors won the Four-Ball matches 5-1, in essence winning the Cup right there. In afternoon Foursomes, the Amateur teams split with the Seniors 3-3, making the Saturday total score 8-4 heading into Sunday. The Seniors won 7 to 5 in singles, making for an easy 15-9 margin of victory.
2024 LEWIS CUP CONTESTANTS
In the Lewis Cup, each team is captained by the newly-crowned NOGA Player of the Year. Amherst’s Brian Smith just won his tenth POY title to earn another captaincy for the Ams, while Windham’s Rob Schustrich earned his first-ever Senior POY title to lead his team in this year’s matches.
Players are invited to compete on each team based on the two NOGA Player of Year points lists, with a minimum of three NOGA tournaments played required. Invitations are made down each list until a team of 12 is confirmed.
No entry fee is collected by NOGA from the players for this event; the two days of golf, food, and fun are a reward for a season of consistent play. Each contestant is supplied with a pair of NOGA logo FootJoy shirts in team colors, worn during the two days of competition.
AMATEUR TEAM
Brian Smith (+1.5) – CAPTAIN
Vaughn Snyder (+3.3)
Kyle Buzaki (+5.2)
Howard Clendenin (+4.9)
Ben Hogan (+3.9)
Thomas Bell (+3.8)
Ryan Wirtz (+2.5)
Rick Deichert (+1.7)
Andrew Grayson (+1.2)
Andrew Malkus (+1.1)
Tyler Ankrom (0.2)
Brian Beebe (1.5)
SENIOR TEAM
Robert Schustrich (+0.6) – CAPTAIN
Doug Hauenstein (1.0)
Mike Belacic (+1.4)
Allen Freeman (+0.2)
Tom Laubacher (0.8)
Scott Winckowski (0.8)
Dean Cutlip (0.8)
Jim Durr (0.9)
Tom Baugh (1.0)
Mark Borlin (1.5)
John Toth (2.6)
Tom Skidmore (0.7)
LEADERBOARD: 2024 Lewis Cup >
Watch Northern Ohio Golf for groupings and starting times, a live Leaderboard, then complete results and game stories after each day’s play at Westfield Country Club.
