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By Chris Lang
WINCHESTER – David Stanford didn’t put up a flashy score
in Wednesday’s second round of the 67th Virginia State Golf
Association Junior Stroke Play Championship at Winchester Country Club. But his
1-under-par 70 may prove to be just as important as the 5-under 66 he posted on
Tuesday to vault him into the early lead.
Stanford, a
15-year-old rising junior at George Marshall High School in Falls Church, will
enter the third and final round of the 54-hole championship with a slim
one-shot advantage, thanks mostly to his ability to scramble around the greens
and save par on a day on which not everything was working.
“Swing wise, I was
losing it a little bit,” said Stanford, who lives in Vienna and leads with a
two-day aggregate of 136. “But I made some really clutch pars down the stretch
to keep it going. I chipped in on 18 for par. And I made a really good up and
down from 60 yards out on 16 for par. So I was hanging on.”
No one was able to
go deep on Winchester’s tricky, 6,336-yard layout on Wednesday. The skies
brightened and the course dried some after Monday’s three inches of rain, but once
again, Winchester’s biggest defense—its tiny greens—gave players trouble.
Roanoke’s Ross
Funderburke posted the low round of the day, returning a 3-under 68 to move
into a tie for second with Leesburg’s Michael Brennan at 137. Brennan, who won
last month’s VSGA Amateur Championship, signed for a 1-under 70 on Wednesday.
A pair of Tidewater
area golfers are tied for fourth at 140, four shots off the lead. Virginia
Beach’s Cullen Campbell survived a wild back nine that included an eight on the
par-4 13th and an eagle-birdie finish to come in at 2-under 140. Chesapeake’s
Patrick Gareiss fired his second straight 1-under 70 to join Cullen at 140.
Leesburg’s Hayden
Miller and Purcellville’s Alex Price enter Thursday at 141, five shots back of
Stanford. Forty-eight players made the final-round cut by shooting 151 or
better.
Brennan, a River
Creek Club member, said he “got away with a 70 today,” noting that he hit the
ball “terrible” but survived because he was able to make several two-putt pars.
“I didn’t have very
many birdie putts at all, at least within 25 feet,” Brennan said. “I hit a lot
of greens, but I seemed to be 35 or 40 feet away on every single hole. My speed
was really good, so I didn’t really have too many stressful par putts.”
Funderburke, a
recent Hidden Valley High School graduate soon set to begin his college career
at Furman University, bemoaned missed opportunities after his seven-birdie,
four-bogey round. He started his round with a bogey, a hole that included the
right-handed Funderburke having to hit an odd shot just to get to the green.
“On No. 1, I hit a
decent drive, but my second shot, I had to turn the club upside down and hit it
left handed,” Funderburke said. “The other bogeys were like that. Just kind of
bad bounces.”
Still, he made up
for it by putting a bunch of circles on his scorecard, including on the par-3
14th when he rolled home a 45-foot bomb for a two. Funderburke
(Hidden Valley CC) said he’s happy that he’ll be in the final group, so he
knows exactly where he stands during Thursday’s final round.
“I always know what
I’m doing,” said Funderburke, who won the pre-tournament long-drive competition
on Monday with a poke of 320 yards. “I always add up my scores in my head. A
lot of people don’t like to do that. But I just always know. It’s good to keep
track and know what I’ll have to do on the holes coming down the stretch.”
Brennan has come
through before in high-stress situations, winning big stroke-play events like
the Dustin Johnson World Junior and the Middle Atlantic Amateur and big
match-play events like the VSGA Amateur and VSGA Junior Match Play. For
Stanford, the experience will be a new one, and he’s excited to see how he
performs under pressure on Thursday.
“I think it’s going
to be interesting,” Stanford said. “He has a lot of experience with being in
contention and this is my first time. So this is a new experience for me.
Hopefully, I can keep doing what I’ve been doing and have fun tomorrow.”
Lang is the editor of
Virginia Golfer magazine and the VSGA’s manager, digital media.