Tag: Golfweek Senior Player of the Year

Golfweek senior POY update: Super Legends division remains a tight race; Kevin VandenBerg continues Senior division runaway

This late in the season, the top players often have separated themselves in Golfweek’s senior player-of-the-year races.

This late in the season, the top players often have separated themselves in Golfweek’s senior player-of-the-year races. And while that is certainly the case in some age groups, the race remains tight in the Super Legends division. Only 110 points separates leader Johnny Blank of Frostburg, Maryland, from George Owens of Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Blank is trying to end a third consecutive season as the Super Legends Player of the Year. In 2023, he finished 1,635 points ahead of Bill Engel of St. Augustine, Florida. Engel, the former Commander of the White Sands Missile Range, is 830 points behind Blank. John Osborne of Vero Beach, Florida, is wedged into that mix too, trailing Blank by only 380 points.

Blank has competed largely in the Southeast this season, logging the most points for winning his division at the SOS Spring Classic and Super Senior in February.

Golfweek awards Player of the Year honors for each of four age divisions: Senior, Super Senior, Legends and Super Legends. Winners will be recognized Jan. 16 at the Golfweek Player of the Year Classic at Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate.

George Owens
George Owens

In the Super Senior division, top-ranked Jim Starnes has racked up many of his 7,547 points in the Southeast as well, but he has also made two trips west with impressive results.

Starnes, of Fort Myers, Florida, leads Greg Goode, of Salina, Kansas, by 1,297 points. Starnes reaped big points for his victories early in the year at the Florida Azalea Senior and the Lowcountry Senior Amateur. His trips west to the Golfweek Senior Amateur in Palm Desert, California, and the Golfweek Pacific Northwest Senior in Walla Walla, Washington, both produced top-5 finishes.

Starnes finished 2023 third on the points list for his division, and in 2016 he was named the Senior Player of the Year as the top points-getter.

Golfweek National Senior Amateur Rankings

To claim a POY title is a labor of love that requires men like Starnes to tee it up frequently and to play well. For Starnes, that means 22 to 25 national senior starts, plus a half dozen four-ball events and a few Florida State Golf Association events.

His has long been a name to know in senior golf: Starnes qualified for the U.S. Senior Amateur in 2016 and 2021.

Perhaps no one knows the term “labor of love” better than Kevin VandenBerg when it comes to winning player-of-the-year honors. VandenBerg has a nearly 3,000-point lead in the Senior division and has POY honors all but locked up for the second consecutive year.

Kevin VandenBerg
Kevin VandenBerg. (Photo: Ron Gaines/Golfweek)

VandenBerg aged into senior competition when he turned 55 in 2021. He has not slowed down since. In 2023, VandenBerg, of Pulaski, New York, teed it up in competition 44 times between Golfweek senior events, Society of Senior events, local tournaments and USGA qualifiers.

He’ll beat that number this year. VandenBerg told Golfweek he has already competed 44 times – finishing first, first, second, second and third in his past five starts – and has six more events planned before the end of the calendar year.

VandenBerg will be inducted into the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame on Oct. 27 for a career that includes his sweep (in the summer of 2000) of Michigan’s three major amateur tournaments: the Michigan Amateur, Golf Association of Michigan Championship and the Michigan Mid-Amateur.

In the Legends division, Bev Hargraves of Little Rock, Arkansas, leads Don Donatoni of Malvern, Pennsylvania, by 950 points. Hargraves notably won his division at the 2024 Golfweek Player of the Year Classic.

From Michigan triple crown to national senior crown: Kevin VandenBerg’s 2023 golf marathon was POY-worthy

“I know I’d like to become one of the better players in what I call the senior circuit, that’s what I’d like to do,” Kevin VandenBerg said.

Back in the summer of 2000, Kevin VandenBerg swept Michigan’s three major amateur tournaments: the Michigan Amateur, Golf Association of Michigan Championship and the Michigan Mid-Amateur. He still remembers a conversation from the next spring. A younger player approached VandenBerg, in his mid 30s at the time, and questioned why, after that hat trick, he hadn’t turned pro – everyone just assumed he would but VandenBerg, who played college golf and baseball at Kalamazoo College in Michigan and was nearly drafted as a catcher, never had those pro aspirations.

Fast forward to 2021 when VandenBerg turned 55 and entered the senior amateur division. He still harbors no pro dreams, but there is something else now.

“I know I’d like to become one of the better players in what I call the senior circuit, that’s what I’d like to do,” he said. “I’m just trying to focus on my game, take care of the things I can do and improve my game the best I can.”

You get there by playing tournaments. Lots and lots of tournaments. In 2023, VandenBerg, a money manager who owns his own company, Apogee Investment Management, teed it up in competition 44 times between Golfweek senior events, Society of Senior events, local tournaments and USGA qualifiers.

Plus, he said, “I played more in 2022.”

But while 2022 ended with VandenBerg runner-up to Rusty Strawn for Golfweek Player of the Year honors in the Senior division (players aged 55-64), VandenBerg did one better in 2023 and took the title for himself. He finished 144 points ahead of Bob Royak, winner of the 2019 U.S. Senior Amateur, courtesy of a T-2 finish at the Ralph Bogart Tournament at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course in Palm Harbor, Florida. He knew he needed a finish of third place or better at Copperhead to top Royak.

Kevin VandenBerg
Kevin VandenBerg

“I didn’t look at the scoreboard until the last day we were on 17,” VandenBerg said, “and I looked at the scoreboard and I think I was fourth or tied for third. I knew I needed to make a birdie on one of the last two holes, probably, and I made a 20-foot birdie putt on the last hole and that put me over the top.”

VandenBerg, now 57, was motivated by the realization he had a limited window of time on the low end of the senior age bracket.

“I wanted to try and play in as much as I could to try and take advantage of it,” he said, “so I just wanted to play in stuff when I’m earlier and when I’m healthier.”

Knowing his health would play a big role in his golf, VandenBerg lost 60 pounds in 15 months. It went a long way in taking pressure off his back and knees so that he could keep up with such a demanding tournament schedule. It’s possible to play too much, and VandenBerg felt that a few times in the past two years.

An equipment switch to PXG also briefly set back his game this past spring, bringing his handicap from +4 to 0 in a span of two months, but by April he had begun to figure out his new clubs.

“I’m still working on trying to hone in my putting,” he said, “but I’m really satisfied with where my game is now that my equipment is kind of settled in.”

Notably, VandenBerg won the Two Rivers Senior Invitational in 2023 and reached the quarterfinals of the Golfweek Senior National Match Play. Having won the Plantation Senior Invitational and finished third at the Gateway Senior Invitational to start 2024, VandenBerg now counts 13 top 5s in his last 20 starts.

VandenBerg splits the year between Naples, Florida, and Pulaski, New York. In 2023, his wife Nikki took a year off from her job as a middle school special education teacher so she could travel the senior amateur circuit with her husband. They often traveled by RV – an unusual method among VandenBerg’s competitors.

Golf is always a part of VandenBerg’s daily routine – whether it’s work in the morning and play in the afternoon or vice versa – and he recognizes the good fortune in that. A recent goal has been to get his game to the point that he can be competitive in the major events, and 2024 could be the year for that breakthrough.

“I think it’s helped – a couple of people have talked with me and said that I should feel confident in trying to play in some bigger events and really trying to do better in some of the events,” he said.

Marcus Beck was the Golfweek Super Senior Player of the Year in 2023.
Marcus Beck was the Golfweek Super Senior Player of the Year in 2023.

Marcus Beck, 66 and winner of Golfweek Player of the Year honors in the Super Senior division (for ages 65-69), is trying to get back there too. He last competed in the U.S. Senior Amateur in 2016, at Old Warson Country Club in St. Louis, and made match play.

For Beck, who works for Merrill Lynch, this past season was about testing the water to see how many events he’d like to play. In 2023, he competed in not quite 20. Beck anticipates he may play fewer times in 2024 – instead picking his favorites and returning to those spots – though the pull of the competition schedule is hard to ignore.

“It’s kind of contagious if you do well, you know? You want to go on to the next one,” he said. “You make a lot of friends and you see them again at the next one and then my wife might travel with me, she’s got friends now. So it turns out to be a nice thing.”

Beck won the Florida Senior Azalea and the Reynolds Senior Invitational. A runner-up at the Senior Porter Cup and a third-place finish at the North & South Senior also make the highlight reel.

Beck was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida, and still resides there, playing out of Capital City Country Club. His bunker game is sharp, he’s tough inside 100 yards and his distance stacks up well in his age division. The big difference in his game in 2023, though, came from a putting lesson he took with Mike Shannon at TPC Sawgrass.

“Same lesson I got when I was 14 years old,” Beck joked, “but it clicked pretty well and I was happy with that.”

In the Legends division (ages 70-74), George Walker of Fairhope, Alabama, won the Player of the Year title with 7,475 points, which was 1,393 better than Peter Allen of South Port, North Carolina, in second. Walker reached the semifinals of the Golfweek Senior National Match Play.

For the second consecutive year, John Blank of Frostburg, Maryland, won the Super Legends division (ages 75 and over) Player of the Year title, this time by 1,635 points over Bill Engle of St. Augustine, Florida.