Nashua's James Pleat was named the NHGA's Player of the Year. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – A pair of Nashua golfers took top New Hampshire Golf Association honors for the year.

State Amateur champion James Pleat was named the Thomas J. Leonard Jr. Player of the Year, while Bryce Zimmerman was named the Kirk Hanefeld Junior Player of the Year.

Zimmerman was the 2020 Four Ball champion.

For Pleat, the award was special, as it’s named after his grandfather, and he achieved a major goal in winning the State Am at his home course, Nashua Country Club, adding to the family legacy.

“It’s very important, I’ve been dreaming of this for a long time,” Pleat said in an interview on the NHGA website. “Ever since I was a little kid, seeing my great grandfather’s name, my grandfather’s name, and my dad’s name on that State Am plaque, I’ve wanted to put my name up there.

“To do that, and win the Player of the Year award in my grandfather’s name means the world, honestly.”

The State Am win was certainly emotion al for Pleat, son of noted local golfer Phil Pleat, who caddied for him on that final day when he topped another local, Cam Sheedy, in the finals on the next to last hole.

For Zimmerman, a senior at Nashua North and two-time NHIAA Individual Division I champion, the award caps a stellar junior career which has been special for him as well as he learned the game from another top NH golfer, his father Rob Zimmerman.

He began playing competitively around 2013, and started seeing results in 2016 “as my Dad was pushing me to play in a lot more events, play more competitive golf rather instead of casual golf,” he said in the NHGA video. “Just putting in a lot of work on the course, and outside the course with mental game stuff, I think that’s pushed me to where I am today.”

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