Winners at the HCC are remembered on this wall.

By Ken Love

For the Mirror

HUNTINGDON — Consistency. It’s the perfect word to describe Huntingdon Country Club’s championship as members celebrate the event’s 100th anniversary this weekend.

Every year since the club’s opening in 1922, Labor Day weekend has been the time set aside to decide Huntingdon’s champion golfer.

This year will be no different as defending champ Ryan Strickler headlines a 16-man field that will compete for the title set to be decided by Monday afternoon.

Huntingdon Country Club opened exactly 100 years ago as a 3,100 yard, nine-hole course. Though golf was new to the area, play began during the summer months of 1922 under the watchful eye of club pro Joe Coughlin.

The club attracted more than 100 members that first year, and as the end of the season approached, club officers began planning a tournament to decide the club’s top golfer. Over Labor Day weekend that year, 16 men competed in a match play event that culminated in a finale between Max Steel and Charles Beckel.

Steel, a local pharmacist, would eventually take home the trophy in 1922 with a 2-up win after parring the final hole.

That first tournament started a Labor Day tradition that continues to this day at Huntingdon Country Club.

Following Steel’s victory, the trophy passed through the hands of multiple members over the next two decades. Following a brief, two-year interruption due to World War II, Huntingdon’s first dominant golfer emerged.

Blair Miller, a Huntingdon native, lived directly across the road from the club. He learned to play golf there as a child and was eventually the captain of Juniata College’s first golf team.

In 1948, Miller captured his first Huntingdon club championship. He became one of the best golfers in central Pennsylvania and at one point held the course record at Philipsburg and Clearfield, as well as Huntingdon Country Club. He would capture a record seventh consecutive championship at Huntingdon in 1954 and won his last trophy in 1971 (the 13th of his career at Huntingdon).

As Miller’s career began to wind down, another Huntingdon champion appeared on the horizon. In 1967, Ed Strickler was a young 18-year-old who was able to edge out Miller for the championship trophy.

“During those years, the tournament was played at stroke play,” Strickler said. “Blair was actually much better at match-play, and it’s interesting that when the club championship switched back to match play in 1971, Miller was able to win the tournament again, right away.”

The format didn’t seem to affect Strickler. He would excel in the event over the next 45 years, capturing an amazing 25 club championship trophies through 2012.

Amazingly, Strickler has captured championships in five different decades at Huntingdon.

Other golfers who have excelled over the Labor Day weekend at Huntingdon Country Club include: Ram Cirignano (3 wins), Dave Kyper (7 wins), Dustin Border (2 wins) and last year’s champ Ryan Strickler (7 wins).

Each winner’s name can be seen on the historic championship plaques that are ceremoniously hung in the Champions Room located on the ground floor of Huntingdon’s clubhouse. Over the past century, the champion’s name has been carefully painted onto the honor roll each year, for all to see.

If time travel were possible, the scene this weekend at Huntingdon would look similar to just about every other Labor Day weekend at the club for the past 100 years — 16 of the best golfers competing for the club championship trophy.

“As usual, we have a strong field in our championship flight,” general manager John Cook said. “We’re looking forward to a strong competition this weekend.”