By TONY CHERBY/For the Sentinel
BUENA VISTA – For well over a decade, members of the Ocean City Tuesday Senior Golf League have given awards to Ocean City High School graduates who were on the golf team. I started documenting our skirmishes in 2012, and since then 47 young men and women have benefited.
As I like to say, it’s our way of partaking in the grand tradition of giving that is a hallmark of Golf in America. My AI gizmo tells me that “The PGA Tour and its tournaments surpassed an all-time charitable contribution of $4 billion, with individual events and independent foundations reporting record-breaking totals in 2025.” Of course, that doesn’t include the countless local efforts across the land such as ours. It must be noted that Robert Prettyman, owner of Heritage Links Golf Club, has for many years more than matched our contributions. Heritage Links happens to be the best “short course” I ever played. If you haven’t, give it a try. It’s a South Jersey gem.
Our scholarship coordinator, retired OCHS teacher Tom Gahr, announced our 2026 recipient last week: Dale Curtis, who will attend Liberty University to study HVAC. Mia Kaczmarski won the newly established Jean D. Robinson Scholarship. She will attend Stockton University to study nursing. Jean Robinson is a beloved fixture in our local golf and Humane Society communities. We salute her generosity. “Long live, Putter.” (Putter is her beloved little pooch. He’s now in Doggy Heaven, which is where I’d like to go, but he’ll always be by her side.)
Tom is now collecting donations for golf team members who will be seniors this fall. Since we expect half a dozen or more grads in 2027, we are going to have to dig deeply and often to continue our tradition in a big way.
So, back to “just a game.” Three new guys signed on a month ago and they’re still here. Once a new guy went home after cavorting with us for a mere half a dozen or so holes. It happens. After three test scores, Greg Harlan, Lou Salgado and Bob England earned official OCSGL Handicap Badges, thanks to our enigmatic software that ciphers the stuff. Under the most glorious skies I’ve seen in many moons, Greg, Bob and Lou competed in their first official round last week. And boy, did Harlan compete.
He turned in the league’s best card since we took our train west in 2022 to the wilds of Buena Vista. He manufactured a gem of a round, a 78 that also featured the most birdies in a single day (or in a year or more for me): 4 fluttery fellows, not to mention 9 pars. Greg will also pocket Low Net cash; enough for a large coffee and maybe even a banana at the Wawa on the way home. Only Chris Ramsay’s 10 pars, also best ever for us at BVCC, topped Greg. Chris had 9 pars last week, and after three rounds he leads that count by a wide margin with 25 pars.
It was my pleasure to play with Salgado, who wondered how Buena is pronounced in those parts. I looked it up. The natives say Bee-yoo-na. Go figure. When I told him, his ears hurt.
In another notable achievement, Sir Richard of Osprey went from worst to first in the putting wars. His 27-snaps is our third best ever at BVCC and he did it on greens that were very challenging. We do like to joke about Rich’s patented putt-n-hop style, but when you compete against him you will not go away laughing. He knows how to get the job done on the carpets. And he sure ironed out the glitches that derailed him last time around.
I compile all our stats after each three rounds – we scramble every fourth week – and every stroke we’ve taken has been compiled in a YTD report you can find in the “Documents” section of our website.
We had 11 matches on June 2; our best turnout yet, and three players are still South of the Border. Two more took the day off, so we have 27 members with room for more. If you were born before June 1971 or somewhere around there and you want to join us, contact Captain Dave Carter: rdavidcarter@live.com and visit our website. It’s free: ocstgl.golfleague3.net I just realized that my first son was old enough to join last year. Ain’t that a kick in the head?
Here are all match play results: Lyons 4, Wright 0; Ramsay 4, Probert 0; DeLanzo 4, Coppenbarger 0; Carter 4, Gardner 0; Harlan 4, England 0; Baird 4, Borucki 0; Cherby 4, Salgado 0; Hawthorne 4, Franks 0; Mayson 4, Cornell 0; Schultz 4, Hollerbach 0, Hurston 4 Curtis 0.
WEEKLY WINNERS
Low Gross (78): Harlan. Wow.
Low Net (66): Harlan
Fewest Putts (27): Hawthorne. Wow.
Birdies: Harlan 4; Probert 2; DeLanzo, Gardener, Franks, Schultz, England
Most Pars (10): Ramsay. Wow.
Most Bogies (10): Lyons, Wright
Closest to the Pins:
No. 5 Baird 11’7”
No. 8 Gardner 2’10”
No. 12 Borucki 10’ 10.5”
No. 17 Cherby 7’5”
At top, a photo of the two OCHS seniors given awards by the league, Dale Curtis and Mia Kaczmarski.
