By Tim Rogers
NOPGA Media
AKRON: For Michael Balcar, it was a confirmation. For Rob Moss, it was a validation. For DJ Holub, it was a fortification.
That’s what can be taken from the final rounds of the 52nd Denny Shute Memorial Match Play Championships that concluded on a mostly gloomy Wednesday at iconic Portage Country Club.
For Balcar, winning the Regular Division of this event for the first time simply confirmed that he is the best player in the Northern Ohio Section.
Winning the match play title on top of earlier wins in the Section Championship — by seven shots — and in the Tour Championship by a remarkable 11 shots, along with a tie for second in the Assistants Professional Championship, is an exceptional accomplishment.
For Moss, winning a Shute championship — his third as a Senior and fourth overall — under pressure-packed circumstances validates that he can still perform when the heat is on, and Moss did that in his 19-hole victory over Tony Adcock.
For Holub, winning the Associate Division for the second time, but the first in four years, fortified his belief that he can win a major event at the end of a summer that was almost as dismal as Wednesday’s weather.
What can’t be emphasized enough is that his 4-and-3 victory came over talented Blake Sattler, who has had a marvelous season with a win in the Assistants Professional Championship, a third-place finish in the Tour Championship and four victories in the Section’s seven stroke-play events.
After two days of glorious weather, the third day was, well, miserable.
“Warm, cold, dry, wet, windy, calm,” is how Balcar described the day-long changing conditions a short time before he defeated 2023 winner Anthony Panepento, 4-and-3. “Did I miss anything?”
Balcar, 33, didn’t miss much of anything in his victory over his Ohio Cup partner and one of the top younger players in the Section. He made 13 birdies, 18 pars and at one point went bogey-free for 22 consecutive holes.
Balcar, who will attend the first stage of Q-School next week at Champions Pointe Golf Club in Henryville, Indiana, took the lead on the fifth hole of the morning round with the first of three consecutive birdies. He never trailed.
While it can’t be official because of conceded putts, it is not inconceivable to say he shot a 7-under 63 in the morning and a 67 in the final round.
It’s not as if Panepento, an assistant at Canterbury Golf Club, played poorly. He had 18 pars and 11 birdies and had a 13-hole bogey-free streak. By the same accounting, it could be said he shot 68 on the first 18 and was 5-under through 15 holes on the second 18. That probably wins most matches.
“Anthony played great,” Balcar said. “He’s a great player and he gave it a helluva run. I have a lot of respect for him and the way he played.”
Balcar’s lead grew as large as eight through the first 22 holes, but Panepento kept fighting back. He eventually cut the deficit over the next 10 holes with six birdies and two Balcar bogeys. When Panepento birdied the 14th to get to 4-down with four holes to play, Balcar had to answer. He matched Panepento’s birdie by making a 12-footer on the short 15th to close it out.
“I knew I just couldn’t keep playing prevent defense,” he said. “I had to go out and win it. I knew going in that Anthony was a great player and that I had to have my A-game. If I didn’t make birdie on 15 it goes to 3-up with three to play and gives him the momentum. I didn’t want that to happen.”
It didn’t.
Neither Moss nor Adcock played their absolute best, but their match was the closest of the day because of their competitive spirits and ability to get the ball in the hole.
Moss, 58, was 2-up through six holes in the 18-hole match. Adcock, the 2003 Regular Division winner, got the match all square with a birdie from 15 feet on the 10th hole after Moss bogeyed the par-3 eighth.
It stayed that way through the next five holes until Adcock missed his birdie attempt on the low side from the right fringe on the 16th hole. The ball rolled about six feet below the hole, and he missed the comebacker. Moss, meanwhile, two-putted from 30 feet.
Two of the most cordial guys in the Section made par on 17, and Adcock evened the match again on the 18th with a wonderful third shot from the fairway that resulted in a two-putt par. Moss was unable to get up-and-down from the deep greenside bunker and made six.
At the 407-yard first, Adcock appeared to have the advantage when Moss hit his second shot from the left rough 75 feet past the pin and Adcock was in the short rough just right of the hole.
“I wasn’t trying to hit it to the back of the green,” Moss explained. “I had to hit a lower-flighted shot because the ball wasn’t going to get in the air from the lie I had. I just had to gauge how the ball would run up the fairway.”
On perhaps the most clutch shot of the day, Moss rolled his right-to-left, uphill birdie putt from 75 feet to within 18 inches, hole-high. The match ended when Adcock chipped 10 feet past the hole and left his par putt agonizingly on the lip.
“I was very fortunate,” Moss said, hesitating while he recalled the shot. “Really fortunate that the ball ended up hole-high. And Tony’s chip was good. It just got away from him a little bit.”
Moss, a Section Hall of Famer with countless victories, was asked if it’s true that winning never gets old.
“I would have to agree,” he said. “But I also will say it is never easy. Winning is never easy.”
Moss intends to keep playing and keep contending.
“I like to compete,” he said. “I like to get out and play and keep testing our skills and our games.”
Obviously, he answered the test over the last three days.
Holub, 34, will be the first to tell you that 2026 has not been productive. He finished in a tie for 22nd in the Tour Championship and tied for eighth in the Assistants Professional Championship when he opened with a 75. His best finish in the Section’s seven stroke-play events was a tie for sixth. He had no rounds in the 60s.
“It has been a long year,” he said. “It has been a very long year . . . full of not great golf.”
Until this week. All it took was a change in the shaft of his driver at the beginning of the week, switching back to the much-stiffer shaft he had used when he had two victories and respectable showings in several of the Section’s major championships in 2025 and 2024.
Holub cruised to a 7-and-6 win in his opening match and beat fellow Pepper Pike coworker Ken Keller, 3-and-1. Then came his biggest and best performance of the season when he dispatched defending champion Kyle Buzaki, 3-and-2, in a match in which he built a 5-up lead while finishing with five birdies in 16 holes.
He maintained his solid play in his concluding victory over Sattler, another of the Section’s top performers. He was 1-up through 27 holes, took advantage of two uncharacteristic Sattler bogeys to start the final nine and birdied the 14th and 15th.
In his four matches, he made 22 birdies and had a 25-hole streak in which he did not make a bogey.
Always one of the Section’s longer hitters, Holub found that his shaft change enabled him to gain more control while still pounding it 300-plus yards.
“It’s amazing how much more fun the game is when you’re not looking for balls every other hole,” he said.
The victory fortified his belief in himself.
“This means that I should just stick to what I know,” he said, looking as relaxed as ever on one of the cushioned couches outside the Portage pro shop. “What I have is good and I don’t need to search for things as much as I have been searching.”
Holub is a confessed tinkerer. Hence, the switch to the softer shaft and the return to a stiffer model.
“Every day,” he said of his constant fix-searching when maybe a fix isn’t needed. “It’s a sickness, an affliction.”
Holub was 1-up through 27 holes and went to 3-up when Sattler made uncharacteristic back-to-back bogeys on 10 and 11, but Sattler trimmed the deficit back to 2-down with a birdie on the par-3 12th.
Holub’s length and accuracy off the tee were never more on display than on the 314-yard 15th that doglegs right with out of bounds on the left and a series of tall trees on the right.
His drive ended up pin-high, just left of the green. He chipped to four feet and made the putt to close it out.
“The fact that I beat four good players this week means a lot,” he said. “It tells me that I know what I am doing. It was satisfying. It was encouraging.”
And you can add fortifying.