Jerry Courville Sr.
Connecticut Amateur champion 1968, runner-up 1959, 1963-64, 1967, medalist 1961, 1964, 1968-69; Connecticut Open champion 1965; Connecticut Senior champion 1991-92; Metropolitan (NY) Amateur champion 1973, 1979, runner- up 1969, 1971-72, 1977; MGA (NY) Open champion 1967; IKE-MGA Individual Stroke-Play champion 1961, 1964-65, 1967, 1969-70; Northeast Amateur champion 1964; Connecticut Golf Hall of Fame 1975.
In
the summer of 1969, Frank Ross, the Connecticut (1926, 1930), New England (1933), and U.S.
Senior Amateur Association (1953) champion and long the ruling patriarch of Wampanoag
Country Club in West Hartford, came up from his then-permanent home in Naples, Fla., and
after a game at his beloved Donald Ross course, was reminiscing about outstanding
Connecticut amateur players of his day. "Bob Grant and Charlie Clare were so good,
and so close in capability, it's difficult to distinguish between them," Ross said,
"but you could probably say that Charlie was the stylist, and Bobby was the player's
player."
Through the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, a similar comparison of Norwalk native Jerry Courville Sr. and Dick Siderowf was inevitable, with Dick in Clare's role and Jerry as Bobby, although neither of these later-day standouts really has needed such a one- to-one evaluation to harden their distinction as two of this state's all- time first-rank players, amateur or professional.
As some kind of simultaneous foretelling, the two first appear in the CSGA's competitive records in 1952, as entrants in the 11th Annual state Junior championship at Watertown Golf Club, site of this event for all but two of its 54 years. In that 11th, Jerry, at 18 in his last year of eligibility, and Dick, 14, tied for the medal at 2-under 70 with yet another champion-to-come, Fred Kask. None went to the finals. Three years later, in the state Open at Ridgewood, Jerry made 73-71-74--218 to tie for fourth, eight back of the winning even-par 210 done by the late John Galeski, then Watertown's head professional. Thus commenced the rather regular punctuation of the CSGA's rich competitive inventory with the name Jerry Courville.
At Brooklawn in the 1958 state Open he finished alone in third at 3-over 219, as Siderowf won his first of three state Open championships. Jerry was runner-up to the late Pat Mazzarella in the 1959 state Amateur at Indian Hill, and finished in a tie for third in the state Open the same year, five behind Siderowf's well-stated and winning 73- 72-69--214 title defense at Shorehaven, Jerry's home course. A pair of virtually impeccable 68s at Race Brook in 1961 brought him his first of four state Amateur medalist wins, a 6-under total that was a record by three (Felice Torza and Ernie Gerardi shot 139 in 1947 at Waterbury) until he made a stunning 66-68, 8-under, at Wethersfield in 1964, when he once more was the runner-up, losing to Manchester's Red Smith in the final. This 134 stood as the medalist record until Charlie Moore-tutored Andy Brock overwhelmed Shuttle Meadow in 1988 with 11-under 67-64--131, which stands today.
Jerry's frustrating failure to become a winning finalist in the Amateur continued in 1963 as he was outdone by some truly superior play by Wethersfield's J. Allan Breed around and on Wampanoag's diabolical Bill Diddel-designed greens that in those days would have made even Arnold Palmer a defensive putter. But, doggedly determined, even after another runner- up role in 1967, losing ultimately to Jimmy Grant at Waterbury, Jerry broke through in a doubly decisive way the following year at Wee Burn as he won both the medal and the championship, defeating eventual 4-time state Amateur winner Fred Kask for that hitherto so elusive title.
With a competitive record similar to that of Julius Boros, in the sense that Julius did his winning off the Connecticut stage, Jerry's exceptional success in the allowably more difficult New York Metropolitan Golf Association as he won on courses like Winged Foot and Wykagyl, and beat players like George Burns and George Zahringer, may not count for quite enough in the final ordering of this state's golfers. But though Connecticut golf historians may possibly haggle over who is the greatest amateur in state golf history, incontestable will be the loftiness of Jerry Courville Sr.'s lasting place as an outstanding human being who happened to play golf very well.
-- Jack Burrill