Pro golf honors Newton's Neville
Newton resident Jack Neville, director of golf at the Robert T. Lynch Municipal Golf Course in Brookline and a past president of the PGA's New England section, will be inducted into the New England PGA Hall of Fame on Oct. 25.
The ceremonies will take place at the NEPGA's annual awards dinner at Kernwood Country Club in Salem.
Neville, a golf captain at Newton High School (class of 1961) and a member of the Professional Golfers' Association of America since 1966, caddied as a 10-year-old at Brae Burn Country Club in his hometown. Brae Burn also gave Neville his first job as an assistant pro.
"My father was Brae Burn's accountant for a year, and he got me into their caddie program. That was my start in golf," said Neville, who served as golf coach at Newton North High School from 1977 to 1986. "My best friends today are the kids I caddied with. Now, toward the end of my career, going into the Hall of Fame and earning the respect of my peers is very gratifying."
Former NEPGA executive director Susan Hudson said the honor is well deserved. "I served under Jack when he was section president," from 1993 to '95, "and his dedication to our members and service to the NEPGA was exemplary," she said.
Before becoming head pro at Brookline Golf Club (now Lynch Municipal) in 1997, Neville held the same position at Martin Memorial Golf Course in Newton from 1975 to 1980 and then at Ponkapoag Golf Club in Canton until 1997.
At Ponkapoag, Neville developed extensive junior programs and taught the game to more than 1,000 junior players every summer, earning him the NEPGA Junior Golf Leader Award in 1990. He was also the NEPGA's Golf Professional of the Year in 1995.
"As a teacher of golf at public courses, it has a meant a lot to me to see young people learn a game they could play for life," said Neville, who won the NEPGA Pro-Junior Championship in 1980 at Andover Country Club.
Neville, a longtime member of the Francis Ouimet Caddie Scholarship Fund's board of directors, was named an honorary Ouimet Scholarship Alumnus last year. He has been director of golf at Lynch Municipal since 2003.
Neville also serves as chairman of the Brookline course's annual fund-raising tournament, which this year contributed more than $4,000 to the Ouimet fund.
With the NEPGA, Neville has served on numerous committees and held other positions. He was a member of the board of directors from 1987 to 1990 and secretary/treasurer from 1990 to 1993.
Challengers at Medford tourney
As the Medford Invitational Tournament winds up its two-week run at Columbus Park, another group of all-stars takes to the diamond at 1 p.m. Sunday.
For the first time last year, the tournament invited players from Little League's Challenger Division baseball program, involving boys and girls ages 5 to 18 with mental and physical disabilities.
The tournament, in its 13th year, includes 12-year-old all-stars from Newton, Malden, Wakefield, Chelsea, Tewksbury, Charlestown, Somerville, Medford, Cambridge, and Billerica. For more information, go to mitbaseball.com.
Odds and ends
Needham's C.J. Yanofsky, a recent graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, will be an assistant women's lacrosse coach at Boston College. A two-time All-American, Yanofsky scored 57 goals and added 21 assists for Trinity, which advanced to the NCAA tournament last spring. He is a graduate of the Rivers School in Weston.
Newton native Jennifer (Paxman) Horgan has been named codirector of athletics at Cushing Academy in Ashburnham.
Marvin Pave can be reached at 508-820-4223 or marvin.pave@ rcn.com. 