Robert Riegel, 94, golf champion

Robert Riegel, 94, winner of the 1947 U.S. Amateur Open golf championship, died of complications from a stroke on Sunday at Neighborhood Hospice in West Chester.

Mr. Riegel lived in Upper Darby and Cape May before moving to the East Goshen home of his executor, Alethea DiGiacomo, last year.

"During the '46, '47, '48 period, there was no greater amateur golfer than 'Skee' Riegel," said Robert Mullock, president of the Cape May National Golf Club, where Mr. Riegel was golf pro emeritus.

"At one time, for a few years, [he was] the best amateur golfer in the world," Mullock said yesterday.

"The great amateur era of golf was coming to an end, to be replaced by great professionals," he said. It was a period of "great amateurs and great professionals, and they vied for who were the best players."

In 1946, when it was played at the Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J., Mr. Riegel "set the qualifying record for the U.S. Open," with a two-day score of 69-67-136, Mullock said.

At the 1948 Masters at Augusta National, he said, Mr. Riegel's tournament total - 293, 5 over par - was the lowest for an amateur.

And at the 1951 Masters, according to the U.S. Golf Association, Mr. Riegel's score of 282, 6 under par, was second only to that of winner Ben Hogan.

According to a timeline supplied by Mullock, Mr. Riegel's first major tournament as an amateur was the Phoenix (Ariz.) Open in 1940. In 1950, his first year as a pro, he played the U.S. Open at Merion. The last tournament for which Mr. Riegel qualified was the 1964 U.S. Open at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md.

In the 1950s, Mr. Riegel was the golf pro at the Radnor Valley Country Club in Villanova. But, Mullock said, most of his working career was spent as "a professional on the tour."

When the Cape May club opened in 1991, Mullock said, the club named Mr. Riegel its pro emeritus because "he just loved to walk and play the golf course in his 70s and early 80s. . . . He loved spinning yarns."

The New Bloomfield, Pa., native attended Upper Darby High School and Harrisburg Academy, DiGiacomo said. Mr. Riegel also attended the U.S. Military Academy, Hobart College, and Lafayette University.

At Harrisburg Academy, DiGiacomo said, he captained the baseball team in 1934, and at Lafayette captained both the football and baseball teams.

Mr. Riegel's wife, Edith, died in 1996, according to the Web site of the U.S. Golf Association. There are no survivors.

A memorial is planned for 3 p.m. March 7 at the Cape May National Golf Club.