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By Chris Lang
WINCHESTER – A little help from a friend helped Vienna’s
David Stanford post the best round of the day at the 67th Virginia
State Golf Association Junior Stroke Play Championship.
Stanford, a rising
junior at George Marshall High School in Falls Church, fired a 5-under-par 66
at Winchester Country Club Tuesday to take a one-stroke lead after 18 holes of
the 54-hole championship. After the round, he gave a ton of credit to his good
friend, Kelly Chinn, who toted the bag around Winchester’s hilly layout on
Tuesday.
Chinn, who reached
the semifinals of last week’s U.S. Junior Amateur in Toledo, withdrew from the
Junior Stroke Play Championship over the weekend, citing the need for a mental
break after grinding through six rounds last week in Toledo. But he called up
Stanford and told him he would be happy to still come and caddie for him on the
tournament’s first day.
“He helped me so
much,” Stanford said. “He was reading putts, pointing out distances. There’s no
way I would have shot 5 under without him.”
Stanford, 15,
posted seven birdies and two bogeys and holds a one-shot edge over VSGA Amateur
champion Michael Brennan of Leesburg. Four were tied at 68, two strokes back of
the lead.
After Wednesday’s
second round, the field will be cut to the low 45 players and ties for Thursday’s
third and final round.
Stanford’s complete
game was on display at Winchester, which absorbed three inches of rain over the
last two days and was playing soft.
“I was hitting
irons well,” Stanford said. “I was hitting basically every fairway. If I was
missing greens, I was making up and downs. It was just all working.”
Among the players
within two shots of Stanford were a pair of players who joined Chinn last week
in Ohio: Brennan and Richmond’s Ben Cooper, who was part of the group at 68.
Brennan is vying to
become just the second player ever to win the VSGA Amateur and Junior Stroke
Play titles in the same year. (Brinson Paolini did it in 2008.) He made the
turn at 1 under and really got going on the back nine, making four of his five
birdies over the final nine holes. His lone bogey came on No. 13, which played
as the toughest hole on the course Tuesday.
“I putted pretty
solid today, and I had a couple putts … I had two that hung on the lip, that
was a little frustrating,” Brennan said. “I wedged it pretty poorly today. That’s
the biggest thing I need to work on for tomorrow.”
Cooper is competing
in his final stroke-play event as a junior before starting his college career
at the University of Richmond. He made four birdies, and like Brennan, had his
lone bogey on No. 13. Cooper didn’t make the cut at Inverness last week but
took away some important lessons from the experience.
“The second day, I
learned a lot about taking your medicine a little bit, which I didn’t do, which
led to a couple of big numbers,” Cooper said. “I think going forward, sometimes
you have to take that five and get away and move on.”
The others in the
68 group were McLean’s Brian Feinstein, Crimora’s Christian Michael and
Virginia Beach’s Cullen Campbell. Feinstein is returning to action after
suffering a stress fracture in his back. He was able to get through Tuesday’s
round mostly pain free, and he made a couple of long putts for birdie—including
a 35-footer on No. 5—that helped spark his round.
Michael, a recent
Fort Defiance High graduate set to begin his college career at Longwood, turned
at even par but played the back nine at 3 under to get within striking distance
of the lead.
“I was pretty
unlucky on the front,” Michael said. “I hit the pin once (and it didn’t go in).
The soft greens got me a little bit on the front. I was trying to spin it back
too much. On the back, my wedges were really good, and I had a lot of short
putts for birdie.”
Campbell, who was a
semifinalist at the VSGA Junior Match Play Championship in June, continued his
strong play with a round featuring four birdies and a bogey, including a
stretch of three straight birdies on the front nine.
Roanoke’s Ross
Funderburke posted a 2-under 69, and Chesapeake’s Patrick Gareiss, Wytheville’s
Daniel Goode and Leesburg’s Hayden Miller all shot 1-under 70.
Lang is the editor of
Virginia Golfer magazine and the VSGA’s manager, digital media.