golf
Hall still has a lot of work to do,
considering he dominated the New
Jersey Open in 2015 and 2016 and
last year was runner-up by one stroke
to fellow club pro
Marc Issler of Ocean
County.
Hall shot 3-under
68 during the opening
round of this year’s
State Open, but it
marked only the sec-
ond time this season
that he broke 70 in a
championship. “From
a playing competitive
standpoint,” he says,
“that’s far below what
I’m used to.”
Hall is accustomed
to winning in the
metropolitan area.
In 2011, he won the
Metropolitan Golf
Association Open, and he’s the only
player over the past 20 years to
capture that title while representing
a Garden State club.
He has excelled in the New Jersey
Section PGA since joining the organi-
zation full-time. He was the Assistant
Player of the Year in 2015, 2016, and
2017, and last year he was the Player
of the Year. He leads in this year’s
race for Player of the Year, thanks
to winning the organization’s first
major, the Match Play, and reaching
the PGA Championship.
“Player of the Year, it’s a nice
feather in the cap,” says Hall, who in
1999 won the New Jersey high school
championship as a senior at Wayne
Valley. “It’s a lot of justification for
what I’m doing and I’m doing it right
on the playing field. That means you
had a pretty good year. So that’s defi-
nitely, year in and year out, probably
one of my top five goals.”
FLASHBACK Defending champion Tyler Hall
reacts to a putt that didn’t go into the hole
during the 1998 MGA/Met Boys Championship;
(Inset) Charlie McGill’s illustration of Hall that
appeared in The Record in 1999.
24
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