ALLENTOWN, Pa. – This week, the PGA Champions Tour stops at the Lehigh Country Club. The elite roster includes 78 players with 238 Tour victories between them.<\/p>\n
The Jefferson Lehigh Valley Classic begins Friday, and on Thursday it was time for the amateurs to team up with the pros.<\/p>\n
After 18 months of preparation, it’s time to celebrate. The course is alive as the crowds arrive at the Lehigh Country Club.<\/p>\n
The golf started before 8 a.m. Thursday morning with the Pro-Am, featuring World Golf Hall of Famers Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, and Colin Montgomery.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think I’ve ever played a pro-am before. Certainly nothing like this,” said Brian Nester, CEO of Jefferson Health.<\/p>\n
Rich D’Avanzo of Hunterdon County, New Jersey, was paired with Scot Parel.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ve been on the spectator side; I’ve never been between the ropes, and being between the ropes is just a great event,\u201d D’Avanzo said.<\/p>\n
More than 30,000 people are expected to flood Lehigh Country Club through Sunday, and many of them are getting their first look at the legends in person.<\/p>\n
“These are guys I grew up with. You know, it’s fun to see those guys,” said Jim Knerr from Emmaus.<\/p>\n
“The guys on the big tour, I don’t really know a lot of them anymore, but these guys I know because they are guys that I grew up with and know and watched,\u201d Knerr added.<\/p>\n
People young and old making memories on the golf course.<\/p>\n
Rubbing shoulders with the pros has its benefits, but for many, conversation is as important as competition.<\/p>\n
“It was great to be out, weather was wonderful. A lot of excitement. People are charged up, enthusiastic, and it’s a wonderful philanthropic event,” said Nester.<\/p>\n
The charities benefiting this week are the Eagles Autism Foundation, Sodexo Stop Hunger, and Valley Youth House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – This week, the PGA Champions Tour stops at the Lehigh Country Club. The elite roster…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[61345,133217,427,99],"class_list":["post-868645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown-area","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}