By Alex Hall Union Leader Staff
Jul 9, 2024 Updated Jul 10, 2024
The King is now a hall of famer.
Manchester’s Dan Arvanitis, affectionately known around the state’s amateur golf community as “The King,” was announced as a member of the New Hampshire Golf Hall of Fame’s 2024 class on Tuesday.
Arvanitis, 70, was on the course at Concord Country Club playing his second round of stroke play at the 121st New Hampshire Golf Association Amateur Championship when the class was announced.
The 2001 State Am champion shot a 14-over 154 (77-77) over the first two days of this year’s tournament.
“It means a lot — a real lot,” Arvanitis said after his round on Tuesday. “To be put in there with the people I’ve played with — Phil Pleat, Richie Parker, Kirk Hanefeld and Bobby Mielcarz — it’s phenomenal. It’s just a great career.”
Arvanitis and fellow class members Larry Gallagher and the late Tom DiFonzo will be officially inducted on Nov. 7 at Manchester Country Club.
Alongside his 2001 State Am victory, the lifelong Derryfield CC member has won a record 12 Manchester City Championships, four New Hampshire Mid-Amateur Championships and the 2022 New Hampshire Senior Championship.
Arvanitis, a three-time NHGA Player of the Year (1999, 2002, 2003) and two-time NHGA Senior Player of the Year (2008, 2013), will enter his 14th season as the head golf coach at Derryfield School this fall.
“He’s just an absolute legend around here and he hits it so well,” said Matt Paradis, who grew up in Hooksett and played for Arvanitis’s son, Matt, at Southern New Hampshire University. “He still gets it around unbelievably good.”
Pleat, Mielcarz and 2008 State Am champion Mark Stevens all described Arvanitis as a fierce competitor.
“I don’t care if he’s playing a 12-year-old kid at Derryfield for a soda or he’s playing in the finals of the State Am, the guy wants to win,” said Stevens, who played two stroke-play rounds with Arvanitis in the 2020 State Am at Nashua CC. “I love the way he competes.”
Concord CC member Mielcarz, who is on the New Hampshire Golf Hall of Fame Nominating Committee, said he has lost to Arvanitis more times than he has won against him over the years.
Mielcarz, 74, won the 1979 State Am at Nashua CC and defeated a then-16-year-old Arvanitis in the semifinals en route to the title. That was Arvanitis’s first appearance in the State Am.
“He just loves golf more than, I think, anybody I know,” Mielcarz said. “He just likes it that much and loves to compete. If you’re playing against him, you know he’s going to try his darndest and at the end you’re going to shake hands with him.”
Arvanitis, who has played in 13 USGA events, said he has always driven the ball well and his putting was “spot-on” in his younger years. He credited his putting performance for leading him to the 2001 State Am title at North Conway Golf Course. In that 36-hole final, Arvanitis made a key 15-foot curling putt on the 16th hole to maintain a two-hole lead on Portsmouth Country Club member Josh Allard with two holes to play. Arvanitis then secured a 2-and-1 win after he and Allard halved No. 17.
“There was some calmness about me (in) that tournament,” Arvanitis said. “I just went up there not thinking anything. Usually, you go in there, you’re nervous … I wasn’t even thinking of winning or anything like that. Every match I played really good and I never had a bad round.”
Arvanitis is excited for another season coaching his Derryfield School golfers. The part of the game Arvanitis tries to help them the most with, he said, is course management. “If I can get them doing that, they’re fine.”
Derryfield has won four state championships (2012, 2013 in Division IV; 2017, 2019 in Division III) under Arvanitis.
Nashua CC’s Pleat, 68, said there is no better golfer to learn from.
“He’s been around the game a long time,” Pleat said. “He’s passing on his knowledge and I think that’s great.”
Gallagher was the head golf professional at North Conway GC for 25 years.
DiFonzo, who died in 2018, served as the New Hampshire Golf Course Superintendent, the superintendent at Laconia CC and on the board of directors of the New Hampshire Golf Course Superintendents Association.
Photo Credit: Thomas Roy, Union Leader
