PHILADELPHIA GOLFER - DECEMBER, 1996

Bill McGuiness won the Philadelphia Amateur Golf Championship this year on his 19th attempt. A few weeks later, he tied for eighth place in the Philadelphia Open.

These two achievements in large measure earned McGuiness, 37-year-old Woodbury, N.J., funeral director, the seventh annual Player-of-the-Year Award of the Golf Association of Philadelphia.

McGuinness, a member of Tavistock Country Club and Pine Valley Golf Club, eared 698 "performance" points, 63 more than Overbrook's Jim Kania, who had won this honor in 1992 and 1995.

Two Huntington Valley CC golfers, Jim Sullivan Jr., Temple University senior, with 560 points, and O. Gordon Brewer, who had won the USGA Senior Amateur this year for the second time, 540 points, were next in line. Chet Walsh, Philadelphia Country Club, 510 points, rounded out the top five.

"It's a great honor, a great thrill," said McGuinness, a slim man whose golf success is based mainly on steadiness and accuracy. "I don't think I've ever been close before," he added, overlooking the fact that he was fourth last year.

McGuinness collected points in six of the 10 local events on which the award is based. In contrast, 235 of Kania's points and 400 of Brewer's were earned in national competition.

McGuinness' father, a former Woodbury CC champion, got him started in golf at age 10. Steady progress was reflected as he qualified for the U.S. Junior Amateur in 1976 and 1977. He advanced to the match play stage in '77, losing in the second round.

He played college golf at Notre Dame University, where he was a 1987 graduate. He qualified for both the U.S. Amateur and Mid-Amateur in the years following. At home, 1989 was a big year; he won the Silver Cross, for the combined best score in qualifying for the Philadelphia Amateur and the Patterson Cup.

"My game has been up and down like the stock market," McGuinness jokes. He says Charles Raudenbush, Pine Valley head pro, has helped him a lot over the past three years.

The Player-of-the-Year competition this year was close than it has been any time since 1993. That was the year Overbrook's Chris Lange, with 440 points, was just five ahead of Aronimink's Jay Sigel, who turned pro the following year. Lange repeated the following year, when his 590 won by a record margin of 290.

- Fred Byrod