Sporting Views: The 2012 Met Open Will Be Filled With Story Lines
Greetings to all and I hope everyone had a wonderful summer. Believe it or not, high school sports are back in action. Section 1 football started practice on Friday and all other varsity sports will have their first practices on Monday. 
Before we dive in and talk endlessly about football, soccer, field hockey, cross country and volleyball I wanted to take time to talk about a golf tournament that is taking place this week in New Jersey.
On Tuesday, the Metropolitan Golf Association will play its biggest tournament of the year, The Metropolitan Open, at Plainfield Country Club in Edison, N.J.. The first Met Open was played in 1905 and won by Alex Smith. Smith would go on to win two U.S. Opens in his career.
For a little over 40 years The Met Open was considered a major golf tournament on the professional circuit just like The Masters, U.S. Open, The British Open and the PGA Championship are today. You have to remember that The Masters didn’t start until 1934 and the PGA in 1916.
I was watching a program on The Golf Channel about Hall-of-Fame Golfer Byron Nelson this week and it cited that his 1936 Met Open victory was a springboard to his PGA Tour Career. Nelson would go on to win 52 times in his career on the PGA Tour. Five out of those 52 wins were major titles.
Other famous golfers who have won the Met Open include Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen just to name a few. Most recently Johnson Wagner won the Met Open once as an amateur in 2001 and as a professional a year later. Now Wagner is making millions on the PGA Tour. He has won three PGA tournaments over the last five years including this year’s Sony Open in Hawaii. Wagner proved that winning the Met Open can be a springboard to making it to the PGA Tour.
This year the tournament will be played in Plainfield Country Club in Edison, N.J. Plainfield has a history of hosting important golf tournaments. It hosted a PGA Tour event, The Barclays, in 2011, the 1987 U.S. Women’s Open, the 1978 U.S. Amateur and four Met Opens.
The golf course was originally designed by Donald Ross and has received some restoration work by Gil Hanse. Hanse is designing the golf course that will be used in the 2016 Olympics.
As for handicapping the field and picking a winner, it’s a very wide open tournament. On a Donald Ross golf course, a player needs to be in control of his ball-striking and have a hot putter to succeed. If I had to handicap the field, the three players listed below would be my top-three selections.
1. Morgan Hoffmann- A New Jersey native who played his college golf with Rickie Fowler at Oklahoma State, he is playing the best golf of all the players in the field with his success on the Nationwide Tour, which is the minor league tour for the PGA Tour, this summer.
2. Mike Miller (Amateur)- I have a feeling that he is due for a breakthrough victory. The Brewster native, who plays out of Knollwood Country Club, made it into the second round of match play at last week’s U.S. Amateur.
3. Danny Balin – This club pro of Connecticut played in the PGA Championship two weeks ago and won the 2012 New York State Open at the Bethpage Black Golf Course.
Other story lines that will be interesting to keep an eye on is the battle for best father and son. Sleepy Hollow’s David and Cameron Young will be in the field along with Mark and Ryan McCormick of New Jersey. Don’t be surprised to see Cameron Young, who missed the cut at last year’s Met Open, make his way up the leader board and maybe get in contention come the final round on Wednesday.
Best Wishes and Thank You
I believe in my heart that behind every good writer there is an extremely talented editor. That is certainly true of The White Plain’s Examiner’s Editor-in-Chief Andrew Vitelli. This very bright and talented editor is leaving the paper after this week to pursue an exciting opportunity.
Too often people are too busy in life worrying about “what’s next?” rather than “what has happened?” Vitelli is a wonderful and talented editor but even more a better person. I feel very privileged just to know him. At just 22 years old, he ran The Putnam Examiner and he came back down south over the last year and crafted The White Plains Examiner into an exciting and interesting read every week.
He has made average writers like myself look good through his ideas and extraordinary editing skills. He brought a lot of energy and heart in launching this paper and he knocked the ball out of the ballpark every week. You know sometimes in life when you meet someone you say to yourself that person has something special he or she is going to go far in life. Vitelli has that charisma and he will go far in whatever path he chooses to go down.
Thanks for all your help, Andrew, over the last year. It has been a pleasure working with you and best wishes in your future journeys in wherever they might take you.
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