LI club pros Danny Balin, Jason Caron qualify for PGA Championship at Bethpage Black

Long Island club pros Danny Balin and Jason Caron qualified for the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black May 16-19 with their finishes at the PGA Professional Championship Wednesday in Bluffton, S.C.

Balin, who in January became head pro at Fresh Meadow Country Club in Lake Success, was runner-up to Alex Beach, who took Balin’s place as assistant pro at Westchester Country Club. Beach won the event that is often called the club pros championship, with a four-round total of 10 under par. That gave him a two-stroke margin.

The top 20 finishers at the Belfair course all qualified to play among the top tour pros in the season’s second major championship.

Caron, a former PGA Tour and Nationwide Tour golfer who is head pro at Mill River Club in Oyster Bay, tied for fourth at 2 under. His previous wins include the 2017 PGA Stroke Play Championship and 2012 Connecticut Open. Caron’s wife Liz, the teaching pro at Mill River, played in the 2015 Women’s PGA Championship at Westchester CC.

For Balin, a former PGA Tour Latin America member, it will be his sixth trip to the PGA Championship. He returns to the Black Course, on which he won the 2012 and 2013 New York State Opens. At Fresh Meadow, he succeeded Matt Dobyns, who left to be head pro at the Meadow Brook Club in Jericho.

Dobyns, a two-time national club pro champion and two-time Long Island Open winner, double-bogeyed the 17th hole Wednesday and fell into a six-way playoff for the final two Bethpage berths. He extended the playoff on the second extra hole with a 15-foot birdie putt after an approach from high rough, between two trees. But he lost on the third extra hole to Tyler Hall of Upper Montclair CC in New Jersey.