Montana Golfers Preparing for Their First PNGA Lamey Cup
by Nick Dietzen, MSGA Executive Director
This April 27-29, for the first time ever, the Montana State Golf Association will field a team at the PNGA Lamey Cup, one of the top team golfing events in the Northwest. Now in its 19th year, the event is an annual team match play competition in which each association under the PNGA banner selects a 10-person team consisting of six men and four women. This year, golfers head north of the border where they will compete at the historic Victoria (B.C.) Golf Club.
Teams representing Oregon, Washington, Idaho, British Columbia, Montana and the PNGA (Alaska and additional PNGA member association players) have two mid-amateur men and two mid-amateur women who are ages 25 years or older, two men 40 years and older, two senior men age 55 and over and two women who are 50 and older. The MSGA is proud to send some of the state’s very best amateur golfers for Montana’s inaugural team: Payton Taylor, Sean Ramsbacher, Jaime Henkensiefken, Ashley Cortez, Chris Haas, Nicholas Balcken, Jo Smith, Deb Porcarelli, Jerry Pearsall, and Bill Dunn.
Each of the players selected are recent MSGA champions, along with having proven their merit at some of Montana’s other high-caliber tournaments.
Missoula has the most golfers represented with Taylor, Ramsbacher, Dunn, Smith and Henkensiefken. Jo Smith was inducted into the MSGA Hall of Fame in 2022 and holds a women’s record with four State Senior titles (2024, 2021, 2020, 2018). Bill Dunn is a fellow MSGA Hall of Fame inductee and has won just about every event possible in the state of Montana, most recently having repeated as the Montana State Senior Match Play Champion. Taylor meanwhile is the defending Men’s State Amateur Champion, while Ramsbacher is a two-time State Four-Ball Champion and 2024 Mid-Amateur Champion. Henkensiefken, a former Montana Grizzly golfer, won the inaugural Master-40 event for golfers over 40 this past summer at Canyon River Golf Club.
Hailing from Helena, Balcken is the reigning champion of both the Montana State Match Play and the longstanding Oilfield Tournament at Marias Valley Golf & Country Club.
Bozeman’s Chris Haas and Laurel’s Ashley Cortez both won their first state titles last summer in their respective Mid-Amateur Championships.
Rounding out the Montana Lamey Cup team is Great Falls’ Deb Porcarelli and Billings’ Jerry Pearsall, both multiple time senior champions. Porcarelli has won three of the last four State Senior Women’s titles (2025, 2023, 2022) while Pearsall is a two-time State Senior Tournament Champion (2024, 2019) and the reigning State Senior Amateur Champion.
The PNGA Lamey Cup is a one-of-a-kind event created by Dr. Jack Lamey, a past PNGA President. In the spirit of regional camaraderie and partnership, it is a two-day competition that includes four-ball and foursome matches the first day and singles matches on the second day, making it three matches in total for each player. Combining both men’s and women’s scores to determine the team result, the PNGA Lamey Cup is as unique of a golf experience as it is exciting, and we’ll be cheering on the Montana squad as they face off against the region’s best.
