The Ohio Cup, now in its 29th playing, has always been a curious blend of state pride and professional fraternity. It is neither Ryder Cup nor Tuesday morning sweepstakes, but it carries hints of both. There are shirts and crests, match-play scorecards and putts conceded. There are post-round patio conversations and dinners where stories of past Cups are retold. But above all, there is the simple, beating heart of competition: my section versus yours, my golf against yours. This October, the Southern Ohio PGA arrives at Wedgewood Golf & Country Club with a team that reads like a cross-section of the Section’s golfing soul.
Wedgewood itself is a character in this story. Robert Trent Jones Jr. sketched it across Powell’s rolling ground in 1991, a place of stone-framed creeks and lakes. It was good then, very good, and now, after the 2023 renovation and its first full growing season, it is better still. Players who knew the old Wedgewood are finding themselves in a dialogue with the new. It’s still a par 72 just shy of 7,000 yards, but it is also a stage—improved, modernized, sharpened—for the kinds of shots this Cup demands: the nervy five-footer, the three-quarter wedge, the tee ball that must start between two bunkers and fade with conviction.
Southern Ohio’s playing captain is a familiar one: Bob Sowards, PGA, of Kinsale Golf & Fitness Club. Twenty Cups played, more matches than he should be able to remember, but does with ease, thanks to the hunger to add one more point to his ledger of 31 wins. His vice-captains, Larry King, PGA, and Tim Krapfel, PGA, bring their own volumes of history, between them more than 30 Cups’ worth of memories. They are as much archivists as strategists, carrying the unwritten record of this event.
The roster mixes newcomers with veterans, as it always does. Andrew Martin of Muirfield Village and Corey Weckerling of Moraine will play their first Ohio Cup, wide-eyed but hardly unprepared. Jeff Olson of Wedgewood will play his eighteenth, on home grass, where every sightline and every roll of fairway is muscle memory. Between those poles you find names like Andy Montgomery, steady as ever in his 14th Cup, and Jared Jones, back again and already proven from Scioto.
And then there is the senior team: Sam Arnold and Dave Bahr, both in their 19th appearance, carrying records that remind you just how many matches one life in golf can hold. Alongside them, Chad Ammer, Joe Moore, Mike Thomas, men who have made the Ohio Cup a perennial stop on their calendar, as if qualifying for it comes as second nature.
The Ohio Cup does not offer a check at the end of the tournament. It does not move world rankings. It offers something more lasting, if less quantifiable: the chance to compete, shoulder to shoulder with peers, in a game that still values honor, memory, and the quiet burn of match play. Southern Ohio’s team, seasoned and new, will walk the creeks and lakes of Wedgewood this week with that understanding. For the 29th time, the Cup is here, and so are they.
The Southern Ohio PGA Ohio Cup Team
The 2025 Ohio Cup | October 6 – 8, 2025 | Wedgewood Golf & Country Club, Powell
Playing Captain | Bob Sowards, PGA | Kinsale Golf & Fitness Club
20th Ohio Cup | (31-20-6)
Vice-Captain | Larry King, PGA | Tri-County Golf Ranch
Competed on 12 Ohio Cup teams | (9-19-8)
Vice-Captain | Tim Krapfel, PGA | Golf Galaxy
Competed on 19 Ohio Cup teams | (17-30-10)
Regular Team
Michael Auterson, PGA | Hickory Woods Golf Course
7th Ohio Cup | (8-8-2)
Jared Jones, PGA | Scioto Country Club
2nd Ohio Cup | (2-1-0)
Ben Kern, PGA | Hickory Hills Golf Club
2nd Ohio Cup | (2-0-1)
Andrew Martin, PGA | Muirfield Village Golf Club
First Ohio Cup | (0-0-0)
Andy Montgomery, PGA | Kinsale Golf & Fitness Club
14th Ohio Cup | (15-15-9)
Chris Muse, PGA | Hickory Hills Golf Club
4th Ohio Cup | (4-3-2)
Jeff Olson, PGA | Wedgewood Golf & Country Club
18th Ohio Cup | (30-18-3)
Danny Sorgini, PGA | Blacklick Woods Golf Course
5th Ohio Cup | (6-6-0)
Corey Weckerling, PGA | Moraine Country Club
First Ohio Cup | (0-0-0)
Chase Wilson, PGA | Columbus Country Club
7th Ohio Cup | (9-5-4)
Senior Team
Chad Ammer, PGA | Maketewah Country Club
6th Ohio Cup | (6-7-2)
Sam Arnold, PGA | The Vineyard Golf Course
19th Ohio Cup | (29-17-8)
Dave Bahr, PGA | Maketewah Country Club
19th Ohio Cup | (27-15-12)
Joe Moore, PGA | Beavercreek Golf Club
10th Ohio Cup | (9-16-2)
Mike Thomas, PGA | Sharon Woods Golf Course
10th Ohio Cup | (11-13-3)
RELATED STORY: 2025 NOPGA Ohio Cup Team >
