Last Update :12/5/2011

VSGA Annual Meeting Recap

MIDLOTHIAN, Va., Dec. 3, 2011 –– The trio of Scott Shingler (Haymarket) as well as central Virginians David Partridge (Manakin) and Adam Ball (Richmond) have garnered Virginia State Golf Association golfer of the year accolades as voted upon by the association’s Championship Committee and announced today at the VSGA’s Annual Meeting at The Country Club of Virginia.

Shingler was named golfer of the year, Partridge was the recipient of senior golfer of the year accolades and Ball garnered junior boy of the year honors.

The top-ranked amateur in the commonwealth in 2011, Shingler, 40, claimed this summer’s VSGA Amateur Championship at The Virginian Golf Club, besting 18-year-old Ji Soo Park (Chantilly) 3 and 2 in the scheduled 36-hole final. At the time of his triumph, Shingler took home his second straight individual major title, having claimed the VSGA Mid-Amateur in October 2010. Shingler became the fourth player in VSGA history to hold both titles in the same rotation, joining former Galax resident Tom McKnight (1985), Martinsville’s Keith Decker (Mid-Amateur winner in 1990, Amateur champion in 1991) and Partridge (1993) in owning that distinction.

In addition, Shingler is believed to be the first competitor to hold the titles of the VSGA Amateur, the VSGA Mid-Amateur, the Washington Metropolitan Amateur (he scored a 2-and-1 victory over Centreville’s Jake An in mid-July) and the Washington Metropolitan Mid-Amateur in the same rotation. Shingler also won the Evergreen Invitational at his home club, Evergreen Country Club, as well as claiming the Northern Virginia Amateur and finishing second at the VSGA Four-Ball Championship. Shingler was also named VSGA golfer of the year in 2009.

Partridge, 57, a VSGA member at Hermitage Country Club, paced all point-earners in leading the VSGA player rankings in the senior division. With his wire-to-wire 5 and 4 victory over Tim Vigotsky (Centreville) in the VSGA Senior Amateur final at The Homestead, Partridge became the first player to have his name engraved on three of the association’s most significant titles: the Amateur, the Mid-Amateur and the Senior Amateur. In September, Partridge went on to capture the Senior Open of Virginia to become the only player to win the Senior Amateur and Senior Open in the same year. In addition to making his mark in the record books, Partridge placed second at the VSGA Senior Four-Ball Championship and finished third at both the VSGA Senior Stroke Play as well as the Middle Atlantic Senior Amateur Championship.

Ball, 17, won this summer’s VSGA Junior Match Play Championship, outlasting Chas Bassing (Great Falls) in 19 holes in the deciding match at The Piedmont Club. The event’s stroke play medalist, Ball, a VSGA member at Meadowbrook Country Club, claimed his first VSGA Junior Match Play title and became the first top seed to go on to take home the title since Blackstone’s Cameron Yancey accomplished the feat in 1996. With the triumph, Ball became the sixth player in VSGA history to put his name on both the VSGA Junior Match Play and VSGA Junior Stroke Play titles (Ball won the Junior Stroke Play in 2009).

Later in the summer, Ball reached the semifinals of the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship at Gold Mountain Golf Club’s (Wash.) Olympic Course, falling to eventual champion Jordan Speith of Dallas. A rising junior at St. Christopher’s School in Richmond, Ball led the private school program to the Virginia Independent Schools Championship and was selected as the VIS state player of the year. The youngest player on the 24-member Virginias team at the Captain’s Putter Matches, Ball shined, returning two and a half of a possible three points in helping Virginias to victory. Ball earned VSGA junior boy of the year accolades for a second consecutive year after sharing the honor with Blacksburg’s Jake Mondy in 2010.

Consistent with its history of recognizing ambassadors of the game, Col. Dick Johns, USA (Ret.), the longtime executive director of the Middle Atlantic Section of the PGA of America, was honored with the VSGA President’s Award in recognition of his contributions and service to the game.

For more than 20 years, Col. Johns led the MAPGA, the sixth-largest PGA of America Section in the United States, comprised of nearly 1,150 members and apprentices, both men and women. He has been a part of promoting the game to golfers in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia by providing services to its members, the golf industry and to amateurs of all ages and skill levels. Col. Johns oversaw the Section’s support of junior golf initiatives, including scholarships for junior golfers, children and grandchildren of PGA Professionals, as well as apprentices going through the PGA Professional Golf Management Program.

During his tenure, Col. Johns coordinated many championships for the Section’s PGA Professionals, which included some amateurs, as well as numerous charity events through its host PGA professionals. Furthermore, he has served as a rules official at numerous local and regional events for both amateurs and PGA Professionals, including three President’s Cups. Col. Johns was recognized by the MAPGA with its President’s Award in 1999 and was made an Honorary Member of The Middle Atlantic Section of the PGA of America in 2000. He has touched many areas of the game, attending more than a half-dozen USGA/PGA of America Rules workshops and has facilitated numerous VSGA-MAPGA Rules of Golf workshops. Col. Johns has also served as a VSGA Course Rating volunteer in the Tidewater region of the commonwealth.

Col. Johns retired in 1995 after serving 26 years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. His final assignment was on Capitol Hill at the Corps Headquarters where he served as Chief of Staff for the 40,000-person organization. A distinguished military graduate of California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, Calif., he received his Bachelor of Science degree in Electronic Engineering before joining the Corps of Engineers. During service to his country, had overseas assignments in Germany, the Republic of Vietnam and Honduras. Col. Johns also had numerous positions in the United States, including service with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (where he earned not only his spurs, but also the nickname ‘The Skull’) and as a battalion commander with the 4th Infantry Division.

The association presented its VSGA Service to Golf award to Springfield’s Tony Caggiano, who has visited nearly every course in the commonwealth, near and far, since becoming the association’s course rating coordinator in 2004. Caggiano and the VSGA Course Rating teams work to ensure that all association member clubs have up-to-date course and slope ratings, ultimately working to ensure that golfers have the ability to compete on an equal basis. Additionally, Caggiano leads the teams to ensure that courses are rated by the guidelines set forth by the USGA Course Rating System, which entails the scheduling of ratings, reporting and data entry following a club visit. Caggiano is a VSGA member at Springfield Golf and Country Club.

Sectional chairman of the year honors went to Bert Wilson of Richmond, who has made an immediate impact on the program since beginning his service in 2009. Responsible for assisting clubs in the Richmond North section of the association, Wilson was instrumental in bringing services and support to VSGA member clubs as well as assisting with and coordinating championships, zone and sectional qualifiers and other events. He promoted the benefits of the VSGA VIP Card Program and the VSGA Handicap Program to clubs within his section. A regular participant in VSGA championships and events and a VSGA member at Jefferson Lakeside Country Club, Wilson has also been active in serving on the Richmond Golf Association’s board of directors.

The VSGA presented its Volunteer of the Year Award to Perry Stone of Williamsburg. Stone has served as an association volunteer for nearly 15 years and regularly officiates VSGA championships and events, qualifiers as well as USGA qualifying rounds. Additionally, he has been an official for MAPGA championships and at LPGA Tour events. A retired Naval aviator, Stone still stays active in furthering golf in the commonwealth by serving as a VSGA Course Rating captain in the Peninsula section; in this role he ensures that VSGA member clubs are rated according to requirements set forth by the USGA.

E. Lee Coble of Richmond, Va., was elected to serve a two-year term as the 34th president of the VSGA. Coble will lead the VSGA’s board of directors, professional staff, committees and volunteers who serve nearly 80,000 golfers in Virginia and more than 310 VSGA member clubs in the commonwealth.

Coble began serving on the VSGA Board of Directors in 2004. In 2006, he was elected as the association’s secretary and he was elected to serve as vice president from 2010-11.

Coble was born in Mebane, N.C., and was introduced to the game of golf when he started caddieing at the age of 9 at Dogwood Golf Course. As a teenager, Coble moved to New York where he continued to play golf but ended up going to college at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., on a track scholarship.

After college, he joined the International Business Machines (IBM) Corp. in New York City. He retired from IBM in 2004 following a career that spanned 32 years. During that time, he held numerous sales and management positions in New York, Washington, D.C., Texas and Virginia. His career tenure was highlighted by being an instructor in IBM’s corporate management training program in Armonk, N.Y., and the IBM Country Club in Sands Point, N.Y., where he was club champion in 1975, a club that is no longer owned by IBM.

In addition to serving on the VSGA board of directors, as a golf administrator, Coble serves on the USGA Regional Affairs Committee and the USGA Rules Committee. In addition, he has worked as a television USGA Rules Escort for NBC at the U.S. Open since 1999, where he has helped to coordinate television coverage for the national championships.

As a golf amateur and enthusiast, Coble has been active in leading junior golf initiatives in central Virginia. He has served as the summer league golf coach for youth who participated with both the “Hook A Kid On Golf” and Challenge Golf League and the Richmond First Tee programs. Coble has also assisted the VSGA Foundation’s Robins Junior Programs at Independence Golf Club and serves on the VSGA Foundation board of directors. As a Virginia golf amateur, he has competed in many local qualifiers and events conducted by the USGA, VSGA and the Richmond Golf Association (RGA). In 1997, Coble won the RGA Mid-Amateur Championship.

Coble has been married to Dianne Mallory for 29 years and they live in her 120-year old family home in Bon Air, Va. They have two children, Cristopher and Corrie Mallory-Coble. Cristopher is in the United States Army and is stationed in Seoul, South Korea and Corrie is a senior and an education major at Virginia State University. Coble is also active in his home congregation, central Virginia’s Bon Air Baptist Church. He is a member and past chairperson of the Chesterfield/Colonial Heights Community Criminal Justice Board and is a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. Coble is also an active member in his home congregation, central Virginia’s Bon Air Baptist Church.

Coble noted that the VSGA will keep building on its core principles while exploring and harvesting new areas of growth.

“Through the many services the association offers, the VSGA will continue to concentrate on fulfilling its core mission of serving its members and member clubs throughout the commonwealth,” Coble said. “Yet, as we serve our current constituents, we must aggressively continue on the path that introduces this life-shaping game to the generations of golfers to come.”

The other executive officers of the board are: Gib Palmer of Midlothian as vice president; Bruce H. Matson of Richmond as secretary; Michael Millen of Charlottesville as treasurer; and Richard Wight of Virginia Beach as past president. Matson, Millen, Wight, Gary Beck (Virginia Beach) and northern Virginian Ray Montgomery (Clifton) have been re-elected to serve four-year terms on the board of directors.

Also at the Annual Meeting, the VSGA recognized its longtime Rules Chairman Clyde L. Luther of Burke, Va., who will continue to serve on the Rules Committee but is stepping aside as its chairperson. Luther has been a veteran rules official at countless VSGA events, has worked more than 120 USGA championships and officiated at three President’s Cups, as well as at the Masters Tournament and the PGA Championship.

He has been the head rules official for the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Committee, as well as the head rules official for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Regularly championing junior golf initiatives, he is a longtime volunteer at the Virginia High School League Championships and has served as general chairman of the Bobby Bowers Memorial Junior Championship, an event he has helped to coordinate for more than 30 years.

In addition to serving as president of the VSGA (1985-86), Luther has also been president of his home club, Springfield Golf and Country Club, as well as the Middle Atlantic Golf Association and the Virginia Club Association.

Many organizations and associations in and around golf have recognized his service. He earned the USGA’s Joe Dey Award in 2002, given in recognition of meritorious service to the game as a volunteer. In 2007 he was recognized with a GOLF Magazine “Innovator Award.” According to the national publication, “These 12 innovators represent a cross section of the many exceptional minds who are working in creative ways to make golf better.”

At the 2008 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship, Luther was named an Ike B. Grainger award recipient for his more than 25 years of service to the USGA and the game as a volunteer. In 1999, he was presented the VSGA’s highest award, the President’s Award. In November 2001, Luther was named the David Wortman Citizen of the Year Award by the Middle Atlantic Section of the PGA of America. The award recognizes an outstanding individual, whose contributions to golf in the mid-Atlantic region include the promotion of the game, the MAPGA and its professionals as well as support of MAPGA programs throughout the region. In 2003, he was inducted into the Middle Atlantic Golf Association Hall of Fame and is an honorary member of the MAPGA.

The aforementioned awards are in addition to the VSGA women’s division golfer of the year winners, which were announced last month at the VSGA Women’s Division Annual Meeting. The Women’s Division honorees were Amanda Steinhagen of Oak Hill (women’s golfer of the year), Springfield’s Mimi Hoffman and Alexandria’s Shelley Savage (co-senior women’s golfers of the year) and Lyberty Anderson of Chesterfield (junior girl of the year). VSGA Women’s Division Golfers of the Year Honored (Nov. 7) >>

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