Courtesy photo
Jerry Seidel’s custom-made Top 100 board, with metal placemarkers indicating all the golf courses he has played to date in his career.

By Ken Love

For the Mirror

Blair County native Jerry Seidel has had a lifelong love affair with the game of golf, and it’s that passion that’s led him on a quest to join one of the most exclusive clubs in all of sport.

To date, Seidel has played an impressive 94 of the Top 100 Golf Courses in America, as rated by Golf Digest Magazine.

With just six courses left to play, Seidel is on course to become one of the select few who can lay claim to playing all 100. If all goes according to plan, Seidel’s amazing feat will be completed within the next couple of years.

The 58-year-old Seidel grew up in nearby Duncansville and played on the Hollidaysburg Area High School golf team. At Robert Morris University, he was good enough to make the starting squad and eventually earned a partial scholarship.

Upon graduation, Seidel went to work for a large food company, where today he serves as a regional manager. Early on, Seidel discovered that golf was a perfect fit for his line of work.

“Golf is a great sport for the sales industry,” Seidel said. “Where else can you get the opportunity to spend four to five hours with a customer, in a one-on-one situation.”

Based in Annapolis, Seidel lived and worked in an area within driving distance of some of the best golf courses in the country. As far back as the 1980s, he was fortunate to begin playing a number of them, and it wasn’t long after that he happened on a Golf Digest article that listed the 100 Greatest Golf Courses in America.

“At the time, I knew I had played a few of them,” Seidel said. “And the list really piqued my interest.”

Over the next few years, Seidel was fortunate to seek out any available opportunity to play additional courses on the Top 100 list.

By 2005, he played approximately 40 courses, but access was becoming more difficult. Though some of the courses on the Top 100 list are public (at greens fees ranging from $400-$600), the majority of the Top 100 courses are exclusive and private, requiring access through a member or other closely associated means.

At that time, Seidel was fortunate to have a friend who ran a Top 100 club that arranged reciprocating golf trips among members of exclusive golf clubs across the country.

“Whenever someone dropped out at the last minute, I would get a call to fill in,” Seidel said. “There were many times I traveled across the country on a day’s notice, just for the chance to play one of these top courses.”

Within a few years, Seidel’s course count had increased to about 60, and his list contained the likes of Pinehurst #2, Olympic Club, Merion, Seminole, Shinnecock and Muirfield Village Golf Club, to name a few.

Another break came when he was able to network with a Penn State alumni group, and those connections gained him access to an additional 15-20 top clubs.

As 2020 arrived and the pandemic hit, Seidel’s total sat at about 75 of the Top 100.

Though his progress slowed for a bit, momentum picked up again when he joined Epic Golf, an exclusive golf group that partners with prestigious golf facilities around the world. This connection allowed Seidel to gain access to about a dozen more courses.

With his total count nearing 90, Seidel then began focusing his efforts on reaching out to the many relationships he had forged throughout the years in order to complete his amazing list.

“Golf is such a great sport, and the people I’ve met at all these courses have been absolutely terrific,” Seidel said. “At this point, it’s amazing how many people want to help me out and push over the finish line.”

Just a couple of weeks ago, Seidel was able to notch his 94th course, leaving only six remaining — Augusta National, Cypress Point, Chicago Golf Club, Sand Hills, Alotian, and Double Eagle Golf Club.

“Each one of these will take some work, but it’s a process I really enjoy,” Seidel said. “My motto is ‘the answer is always no, unless you ask.”’

Seidel already has a couple leads on a few of his final six and hopes to knock off a couple more this year.

His goal is to complete the prestigious Top 100 list within the next year or two. (Though official records aren’t kept, sources estimate there are less than two dozen people who have actually completed the list, through 2020).

“It’s been an amazing journey, and in recent years my daughter Alexis has become really excited about the whole process,” Seidel said. “We have a plan to have her meet me on the 18th green when I finally finish the 100th course, hopefully sometime late next year.”