NOTE TO MEDIA: Links to scoring, the event preview, photos and previous recaps from this event can be found on the event portal at the link posted above. Please click on the “Media” tab to find those items.
By Chris Lang
ROANOKE — In the seven years that Ballyhack Golf Club has hosted the Delta Dental State Open of Virginia, there have been three rounds of 63 posted. Mark Lawrence Jr. owns two of them.
For the second straight year, Richmond’s Lawrence recorded a 63 at Ballyhack, and his 9-under-par round on Thursday gave him a four-shot advantage after 18 holes of the 2020 edition of the championship.
Lawrence, who plays at Virginia Tech and is a past winner of the Virginia State Golf Association Amateur Championship, is a two-time runner-up at Ballyhack, having lost in playoffs in 2016 and 2019. Unlike last year, when his second-round 63 was part of a furious rally to get back into the championship, he’ll start Friday’s second round playing from ahead.
“It’s one of my favorite golf courses,” said Lawrence, who finished with nine birdies and no bogeys Thursday. “And the greens are so damn good right now, if you get the ball rolling on line, it’s going in. I feel like there can be some low scores because of how the greens are rolling, because you can make a lot of putts.”
As for the unfinished business aspect of this year’s event, considering he’s come up just short twice?
“I’d love to be able to come out on top, but I have to play some good golf to finish out this week.”
Lawrence’s laser focus was on display from the start on a calm, cloudy Thursday morning. He made the turn at 5 under, and his only thought when stepping to the 10th tee was, “How do I get to 6?”
“Everything was pretty solid,” Lawrence said. “I wasn’t hitting my short irons exactly how I wanted to hit them. But I kind of got away with it. My wedge game was nice. The two greens I missed, I chipped in on 4, and then I missed 12 left and I chipped from the rough to about 2 ½ or 3 feet.”
The two players tied for second behind Lawrence also took advantage of the benign morning conditions, as professional Mason Stutler, PGA, of Richmond and amateur Dustin Groves of Charlottesville each returned 5-under-par 67s. For Stutler, the position is a familiar one. He roared out of the gates last year with a 65 and was tied atop the leaderboard after 18 holes. A final-day 77, however, dropped him out of the top 10 by tournament’s end.
“You pretty much chalk that up as some sort of learning experience,” Stutler said. “Obviously, you never want to finish the way I did. But if you learn from it, it’s not for nothing.”
In Thursday’s bogey-free round, he made five birdies and rarely found himself in danger of dropping a shot.
“I hit a ton of fairways and I hit a ton of greens,” Stutler said. “I had pretty good speed, I didn’t make a ton (of putts), but everything was finishing up pretty much right next to the hole. On these greens, you don’t want to be leaving yourselves four or five footers for par. All in all, relatively stress free.”
Groves, a former mini-tour player and PGA Tour caddie, regained his amateur status several years ago and has been a factor in plenty of VSGA championships since. He opened Thursday’s round with three straight birdies before dropping a shot on the par-4 4th. That was his only misstep. He added birdies on Nos. 9, 11 and 14 to finish at 5 under.
Though he hasn’t played much competitively this year, Groves has been able to practice more than in years past. That mitigated some of the jitters of playing in his first big competitive event of the year—a State Open, no less—and helped him get off to a great start.
“There haven’t been many events to play, and my 2½-year-old boy isn’t in any sort of school, so me and my wife plus his grandparents have been tag-teaming it,” Groves said. “Just like everyone, life has changed. I have been able to get out, and he’s old enough now to where he likes to watch me hit. That’s been a lot of fun, and it’s given me a little perspective just on family. He’s talking to me now, and it’s really cool to see.”
Conditions changed in the afternoon, as the wind picked up and the greens dried out, adding teeth to Ballyhack’s links-style layout. Tazewell amateur Buck Brittain navigated the afternoon best, posting a 4-under-par 68 that included his second career hole-in-one.
He used a 7-iron to ace the 174-yard par-3 3rd, where the hole location was in the “bowl” in the back half of the green.
“We saw the red dot yesterday (in the practice round), and we threw some balls up on the hill (to see where they would go),” Brittain said. “I hit a good shot, and it landed close to where I wanted it to. I thought it was left of where it needed to be to go in, so I expected it to be below the hole. … Larkin (Gross) hit a good shot too. So we drive up and I only see one ball, and I’m like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
“My assumption was that it rolled off the green into the rough. I never expected it to go in, and then Larkin started yelling, ‘hole in one!’ I said, no, no way it was in the hole. I got my putter and wedge, and then I saw it.”
Among the players tied for fifth at 3-under-par 69 is Stanardville’s Mikey Moyers, a reinstated amateur who is considering trying his hand once again at professional golf once this summer is complete. (He also qualified for the upcoming VSGA Amateur next month). Moyers, who has competed in Web.com (now Korn Ferry Tour) events in the past, said Thursday’s afternoon round brought back some memories.
“Sure enough, I get out here and it’s like a tour event,” Moyers said with a laugh. “Tour events, you come out here, get the late tee time and you always see a 9 under or an 8 under. You just can’t pay attention to that. I don’t want to make excuses, but the wind started blowing pretty hard out there. But we’ll have the morning tomorrow, so we’ll see.”
He started on No. 10 made double bogey on 16 soon after the round resumed after a 48-minute delay for lightning in the area, but he recovered with a superb stretch on the front nine. He eagled the par-5 2nd and added birdies on Nos. 3 and 4 to get to 3 under for the day.
Also in that group was 69-year-old Dick Mast, PGA, who is no stranger to shooting his age. The PGA Life Member has played in plenty of PGA Tour Champions events in the past, and he settled in after an uneven front nine to shoot 2-under on the back and remain in the hunt.
“I love a links-style golf course,” Mast said. “I’d like to see it get a little windy – I see it’s picking up a bit – I just love this kind of golf where you have to hit different types of shots to fit it on a quadrant. It plays so different (every time) because they have so many sets of tees. It’s a great track. You learn to love it because you’ve got to know it. The first time you play it, you might not enjoy it much unless you have a caddie.”
Amateurs Aaron Summers, Peter Gasperini and Jeff Long also shot 3-under 69s Thursday.
The starting times flip on Friday, meaning the three at the top of the leaderboard will play in the afternoon, where conditions are traditionally tougher at Ballyhack.
“I love Mark, and he’s a great player,” Brittain said. “You can’t expect him to play bad tomorrow. He may have hurt everybody today. I don’t know if you can give him that much of a lead. But it’s still golf, and you never know. If I can get a 65, maybe I can get there close to him.”
Chris Lang is the VSGA’s manager of media and communications. The Delta Dental State Open of Virginia is conducted jointly by the VSGA and the Middle Atlantic PGA.