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By Chris Lang
CENTREVILLE — Jimmy Angel’s feathery touch with the putter helped his side lift trophies at the 8th Virginia State Golf Association Super Senior Four-Ball Championship.
Angel sank a long birdie putt on 18 to force a playoff, then made a mid-range birdie putt on the first playoff hole as Angel and Jim Woodson won the 65+ division championship on Wednesday at Chantilly National Golf & Country Club.
Woodson and Angel shot a two-day aggregate 133, as did David Partridge (Hermitage CC) and Harry Thomas (Kinloch GC). Partridge and Thomas made par on the playoff hole.
Woodson (Mill Quarter Plantation GC) won his second straight title in the event having paired last year with Leon Roday to win at The Virginian. Asked if people would be knocking down his door to play with him in future events, Woodson laughed.
“Jimmy might not let anybody in now,” he said. “We’ve got a good team here.”
Woodson might be keen to hang onto Angel as a partner, too, considering Angel’s deft touch with the flat stick on Wednesday.
They entered 18 trailing first-round leaders Tim Vigotsky (Robert Trent Jones GC) and Jack Allara (Hidden Valley CC) by a stroke. Playing in the group ahead, Thomas and Partridge made par on the 18th to finish at 133, meaning Vigotsky and Allara would need only to make par to claim the championship.
They hadn’t made a bogey all tournament, but both Vigotsky and Allara were in trouble off the tee on 18 and neither reached the green in regulation. Needing to get up and down for par, both players hit their approaches long, then three putted for double bogey, dropping them out of the playoff.
Meanwhile, Angel drained his long birdie putt, screamed “yes!” and let out a huge fist pump knowing he had gotten his side into a playoff.
“To me, it was a hard pin placement,” said Angel, a member at Salisbury Country Club who won his first VSGA championship. “It was a hard second shot that we had, and when we got up there, our second shots were better than I expected, to be honest with you. When I looked at my putt, I knew it was going to be quick and knew it was going to the right. I thought I had missed it on the left, but it just slowed down and fell in on the left side.”
The putt on 1 was a much easier read, he said.
“To me, the putt over there was relatively flat, but when it got to the hole, it was back uphill,” Angel said. “I liked that. It had a little bit of left to right break, and both of us agreed on the read on it. I hit it just about right where I wanted.”
Said Woodson: “That putt on 1, we were 100 percent sure it was going to the right.”
In the 70+ division, Bill Stout (Washington G&CC) made an 8-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to lead he and partner David LeClere (International CC) to a one-shot victory over Belle Haven Country Club members Charles Ballou and Richard Blackburn. Stout and LeClere posted an even-par 72 Wednesday to follow up an opening-round 69 to finish with a two-day aggregate 141.
The two sides began the day tied for the lead. Stout and LeClere took a two-stroke lead at the turn after playing the front nine in 1 under while Ballou and Blackburn played it at 1 over. Blackburn and Ballou made back-to-back birdies at 16 and 17 to head to the 18th with a two-shot lead. But they made double-bogey 6 on the last, and Stout’s birdie made for a three-shot swing that gave his side the title.
Stout said he didn’t feel any pressure standing over the final putt.
“After all of the bazillion things I’ve played in over the years, I’m just out here like an old guy having fun,” he said. “That’s all I am, a 74-year-old guy, just having fun.”
The 75+ division featured a birdie for the win as well. For the second straight day, John Casstevens (The Federal Club) and Tom Vogt (The Dominion Club) birdied the final two holes, giving them a one-shot victory over David King (Trump National GC, Washington, D.C.) and Rich Fischer (Army Navy CC).
Casstevens and Vogt shot 70-71 for a two-day 141 and the win.
“We got off to a slow start, but we regrouped and got it back on line,” Casstevens said.
Lang is the VSGA’s manager of media and communications.