Troy Vannucci
How the NJ Golfer of the Year Troy Vannucci saved his 2024 season
I first met him in the summer of 2010. Little Mill’s most prolific member, world-class blackjack player Tommy Hyland, invited his nephew from Memphis to New Jersey to spend the summer with him. Revered by many, including myself, when Tommy asked me to play with his nephew, I happily obliged. It didn’t take me long to realize that Tommy’s nephew was different. His Memphis twang, short stature, and wildly unpolished golf game quickly became the topic of conversation at the club.
Cutting your teeth at Little Mill is a painful experience, requiring perseverance and a trash can full of golf balls. Tommy had the golf balls covered, but I naturally doubted his nephew’s resolve. Repeated trips through the suffocating Jersey Pines quickly weed out the weak-minded and leave those who endure with more questions than answers. That summer, Tommy’s nephew explored every inch of those pines. With a short game hazardous to his playing partners and distance control resembling a player with a broken rangefinder, it was no surprise his scores matched July’s daily highs. It seemed this summer golf retreat was a failed experiment, and Tommy’s nephew would become a distant memory.
Sixteen years later, Troy Vannucci, the 2023 GAP and NJSGA Player of the Year, is a household name on the Tri-State amateur golf circuit. While his game has drastically improved, his stature remains the same. What he lacks in height, he more than makes up for in tenacity. While country clubs are adult playgrounds for most, Troy abstains from the surrounding distractions and vices. He can usually be found on the range honing his craft with a practice routine more akin to a tour professional than a 32-year-old project manager. When he’s not on the range, he’s on the course, routinely taking money from anyone willing to challenge him (good luck finding a Little Mill member who hasn’t handed him money).
Unlike most amateur players, who dabble in qualifiers or play selective schedules, Troy’s is unrelenting. While most South Jerseyans spend their summers at the Shore or relaxing by the pool, Troy is buzzing up and down the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Turnpikes and resting his head in budget hotels. In 2024, he estimates playing over 50 tournament rounds across eight states, staying in 22 hotel rooms, and driving more than 9,000 miles.
To recreational or non-golfers, this lifestyle may sound exhausting—even mad. There is a level of acceptance amongst competitive golfers that we are all a bit deranged; the only thing up for debate is the severity. Where recreational golfers play the game to seek comfort or a good time, competitive golfers embrace discomfort; they thrive on it.
They need it.
Like any high, the thrill begins with a rush, often followed by a spiraling descent. Those who return again and again bear scars—close calls, one-shot misses, good shots that flee the mind, and bad shots that linger – all vying for mental real estate. Yet, the chase continues. Some might call it a sickness, a paradox where heartbreak fuels rather than defeats.
Despite not winning any major championships in 2023, Troy completed the rare feat of earning both the NJSGA and GAP Player of the Year honors through a host of top finishes. He lost in the final match of the NJ Mid-Am, where he held a late lead on the back nine against local legend Michael Brown. He medaled in the stroke play portion of the GAP Amateur before being bounced in the first round by last-seeded Patrick Itswan. He led the NJ Open entering the final round before a disappointing final round 73 left him in a tie for 3rd. Shortly after, he would go on to lose the GAP Patterson Cup by one shot: a missed short birdie on the last hole sealed his fate.
The pattern was consistent: steady play marred by heartbreak in key moments.
This theme extended beyond 2023.
In the 2018 NJ Open at Montclair, he was the low amateur, finishing two shots out of first place. 2021 was particularly painful—he lost in the finals of the NJSGA Mid-Am, followed by a one-shot loss at the PA Open at Oakmont C.C. to world-class amateur Jimmy Ellis.
As the years went on and the close calls continued to mount, part of me feared the mental scar tissue would begin to erode his playing ability. As we have witnessed on professional circuits, no one is immune to this. Sometimes, the game simply gets the best of a player.
Troy’s playing ability seemed to be both his greatest strength and weakness – resulting in high-level play but enormous expectations that he couldn’t seem to meet. After his winless 2023 campaign, the goals for 2024 were clear: the results would be binary.
It was time to win.
His 2024 campaign would begin at the GAP Mid-Amateur, Philly’s first major championship of the season. Held at the tight and challenging Commonwealth C.C., the Arnold Palmer design demanded precision over length, favoring the accurate Vannucci.
The same Pro V1x’s that navigated through Little Mill unscathed became cannon fodder at the hazard-riddled Commonwealth. Dubbed his “worst performance of the year,” he would finish 11-over, leaving him in a tie for 16th.
His next start consisted of a heart-wrenching 19-hole loss in the quarterfinals of the NJSGA Mid-Am to the eventual winner, Austin Devereux. A T12 at the GAP Open and a T6 at the NJ Amateur followed, finishing 3 and 8 shots back, respectively.
These finishes would be considered a success for just about anyone outside of Troy. The standard of “win or bust” golf appeared to be weighing on the steely South Jerseyan.
“It was time to step back and reassess things a bit. I wasn’t getting a good roll on my putter for quite some time. I went to get the lie/loft checked, and I was shocked. My putter had 6 degrees of loft.”
He returned to Little Mill, two-degree lofted putter in hand, and proceeded to torch his home track en route to a 64, including a 7-under, 29 on the challenging white nine.
As the weeks went on, the rounds in the 60s at Little Mill continued – 68, 67, 65, 69, 67. Out of all the renowned players that have come through “The Mill,” this figured to be the greatest stretch of golf seen at the Marlton track.
This success soon translated into tournament play, where Troy played himself into a familiar position—the last pairing in the final round of the NJ Open. By day’s end, he would suffer a similar fate—a disappointing final round of 74 at Plainfield C.C., which left him in a tie for fourth and another empty ride home down the Garden State Parkway.
With the competitive schedule mainly behind him, it seemed 2024 would be another year where he would fall short of expectations.
For the 8th time in 9 years, Troy began August by winning the Little Mill Club Championship—this time by 10 shots. Despite the club being known for its long list of scratch players, none are close to the level of Vannucci. This win would not change the season’s narrative—this was expected and ordinary.
And then, something special happened. Traveling to stormy Concord, PA, Troy returned wet, worn, and with a major trophy in hand. In a tournament where “for the first time all year, he was in total control of his game,” Troy went wire-to-wire to win the Joseph H. Patterson Cup, a GAP major whose notable winners include R. Jay Sigel and William Hyndman III.
The following week, he would win the PPGA Donald Ross Better-Ball, shooting a tournament record 19-under with partner Andy Butler.
Troy was officially rolling into the season’s last major – the Pennsylvania Mid-Amateur, held at Moselem Springs G.C.
After one round, Troy found himself one shot back of the lead and once again in the final group of a major. This time proved to be much different. Fifteen pars and three birdies later, Troy was crowned the 2024 Pennsylvania Mid-Am Champion.
A victory in his next start, the Whitford Pro-Am would make for five wins in 5 starts.
With his game peaking and the results materializing, Troy decided to take a look at the NJSGA Player of the Year standings.
“I was looking at the NJSGA POY points list to see where I stood, not thinking much of it. I found out that if everything went my way and I got a little lucky, I wasn’t mathematically out of the running. I essentially needed to win out.”
Standing 176 points behind Jack Wall, with only 225 available points over three remaining events, Troy would need to have top finishes in the Bergen County Amateur, the Eagle Oaks Invitational, and the Nassau Invitational to safely secure POY honors.
Troy would proceed to demolish the field at the Bergen County Am by 12 shots, earning 75 POY Points with his victory. In the pouring rain at Darlington G.C, he would shoot 7-under for 36 holes – a 3-putt bogey would be his only blemish on the day.
At the prestigious Eagle Oaks Invitational, Troy would go wire-to-wire, finishing as the only player in red figures at 4-under. For his efforts, he would earn 75 POY points and a free membership to Eagle Oaks C.C. for the 2025 season.
Now trailing the NJ POY by 26 points, it would all come down to his last tournament, the Nassau Invitational.
In order to surpass Wall, Troy would need to qualify for match play and win one match. The talented field consisted of one of Ireland’s best amateur players, Jack McDonnell, 2022 NJSGA Amateur champion William Celiberti, and a host of other top players. With a strong field and an unknown course, “Player of the Year” was far from a formality.
With howling winds and concrete-firm greens, the qualifying scores were exceptionally high, except for Troy, who finished as the only man in red figures with a 3-under par 67.
As the #1 seed in match play, all that stood between him and the POY was a victory over 16-seeded Andre Klepper. A hot start by Klepper led to an early two-down deficit for Vannucci. With his back against the wall, Troy would respond with five birdies in his next 10 holes, leading to a 3 and 2 victory.
It was official: Troy Vannucci was the 2024 New Jersey Player of the Year.
Vannucci (left) with caddie and writer Beau Guarino at the 2024 US Mid-Amateur Qualifier
He would go on to win his next two matches, defeating McDonnell and Celiberti in the process. In the event’s final, he would play his first 10 holes at 6-under par, overwhelming competitor Carter Prince en route to his eighth straight win.
Two more better-ball victories capped his historic run: the North Hills Invitational paired with clubmate Dan Keenan, and the Harold Cross held at Philadelphia Cricket Club, where he and his partner, Scott McNeil, made a cumulative 20 birdies en route to shooting a tournament record 17-under par.
And just like that, the player who had seen victory elude him so many times, in the cruelest forms, had now collected 10 consecutive wins in 10 weeks – a career’s work for a successful Amateur player and a pipe dream for the rest of us.
Beneath the veil of close losses and sleepless nights was a player developing into a winner—to all of us who have the pleasure of calling Troy a friend, this is no surprise. The same boy who survived the South Jersey pines nearly 20 years ago took some of the biggest shots the game can throw and found light in the darkness of defeat.
Some say golf is just a silly game, a pastime, something to do with buddies – but for others, it is much more. There is much to learn from a game that promises nothing, gives in small doses, dishes more pain than pleasure, and forces you to heal on your own. Home to some of the fondest memories and greatest defeats one will experience – but those who return learn there is much more to this game than wins and losses.
For me, it broke mental barriers that previously caused fear and self-doubt. If the game had not provided me with the platform to work through those challenges, I feel my life would be vastly different today.
In Troy’s case, he proved to himself that he could repeatedly look failure in the face, draw on his courage to persevere and emerge on the other side as a champion. This will undoubtedly translate to other aspects of his life.
As our journeys continue, Troy will likely win many more tournaments, and I would be fortunate to win anything of significance. But what we take from the game will be the same. The memories we will make, the relationships we will form, and the opportunity afforded to test and grow our character. Golf provides a constant measure of who we are as people and a platform to help us grow into the best versions of ourselves. These opportunities are offered to all who continue teeing it up, and God willingly we will. Because no matter what is thrown at golf’s deranged, our love for the game will always outweigh the heartbreak, and we will keep coming back to receive what this great game has to offer.
