By Tim Rogers
NOPGA Media
Pepper Pike: It is the last stroke play event of the 2025 season, but you know how the saying goes.
It’s never too late to make a good impression and first impressions don’t always matter in a 36-hole golf tournament. Second chances are just 18 holes away.
That’s precisely what Sean McGuire and Jon Jones – and several others – accomplished on Monday during the opening round of the 24th Mitchell-Haskell Tour Championship at The Country Club.
Many familiar names dotted the upper spaces of the leader board in both the Regular and Senior Divisions in one of the most prestigious events on the schedule of the Northern Ohio Professional Golfers Association.
McGuire, the Assistant Professional at nearby Pepper Pike Club, shot a 3-under 33-36=69 over Country’s immaculate – and mighty long – 7,154 yards to lead the Regular Division and Jones (36-34) was right behind as one of two players at 2-under 70 to lead the Senior Division and put himself in the rare position to claim a NOPGA double-header as both the Regular and Senior Division champion.
Defending champion Blake Sattler birdied two of the final three holes – and four of the final seven – to join Jones at 36-34=70. The Director of Instruction at Brookside Country Club is seeking a repeat of 2024 when he scorched the field with a tournament-best 66 in the final round and went on to beat Brandywine Assistant Michael Balcar (68-70) by two shots.
That Sattler is in contention comes as no surprise. In addition to his title in 2024, he was second by one shot to Mark Sierak in 2023 and has averaged 69.8 in his last five rounds at Country.
Shaker Heights Country Club Assistant Professional Jordan Paolini, one of the Section’s stars-on-the horizon, is fourth at one-under 71 and Toledo Country Club Head Professional Jaysen Hansen – a three-time Section Player-of-the-Year — is fifth at even 72.
Three others, including three-time NOPGA Associate-of-the-Year and former Ohio Open champion Michael Balcar, are at 1-over 73. Balcar is in contention despite battling a balky lower back.
Jones, who has been in contention several times this season, has six players on his heels in the Senior Division.
Two-time M-H winner and reigning Senior Professional champion Gary Rusnak is one shot back. Former Section Player-of-the-Year Tony Adcock (Foxy Golf), Senior Professional runnerup Sean Kenily (Union Club), former Section Player-of-the-Year Tony Milam (North Coast Junior Tour), 2023 winner Mike Stone (Belmont Country Club) and 1899-Golf Managing Partner Scott Pollack trail by three. All have a chance.
McGuire, the reigning Denny Shue Match Play Associate Champion and third in this event last year, played Country’s front nine in 3-under 33. He got to 4-under with a birdie – his fourth of the day – on the 614-yard 12th hole before suffering his lone bogey on the par-3 14th with a poor bunker shot.
“It was just a very solid round of golf,” said McGuire, regarded as one of the Section’s longest hitters. “There wasn’t a ton of wind and while the fairways were a little soft, the greens were very good. It was good scoring conditions.”
Sattler, the reigning champion and a five-time winner on the NOPGA Tour this season, was one-over at the turn but birdied four of the final seven holes – and each of Country’s par-5 holes — to get into contention and become the first back-to-back winner since Jim Troy in 2020-2021.
Jones, a four-time Denny Shute Match Play Champion, is in the enviable position of being in both the Regular and Senior Division. He is tied for second overall but leads the Senior Division by one shot over defending Senior Division champion Gary Rusnak (35-36=71) and two shots over Foxy Golf Instructor Tony Adcock (36-36=72).
McGuire, 31, played Country’s four par-5 holes in three-under. He successfully two-putted from 20 feet on the 508-yard second, from 45-feet on the 568-yard eighth and curled in a right-to-left 8-footer on the 614-yard 12th.
Ironically, his lone bogey came on the par-3 14th when he pulled his tee ball into a green-side bunker and failed to get it up and down.
Hansen and Troy, no strangers to NOPGA winner circles, have averaged 71 strokes per round in their most recent rounds at Country. Those are two of the top marks of those in contention.
Play resumes at 9 a.m. on Tuesday with the leaders – McGuire, Sattler and Paolini – playing at 11:10.
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