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By Chris Lang
GLEN ALLEN — There was no sneaking into match play this year for Mark Lawrence Jr. at the Virginia State Golf Association Amateur Championship.
Lawrence, a rising Virginia Tech senior and 2017 U.S. Amateur semifinalist, needed to survive a playoff at Creighton Farms last June just to qualify as the last seed in the 32-player match-play field. The rest, of course, was history, as he rattled off five straight victories to claim his first VSGA Amateur title.
In the 105th playing of the event, Lawrence took advantage of ideal conditions at The Federal Club on Wednesday afternoon to post a 6-under-par 66 and surge to the top of the stroke-play qualifying leaderboard. After posting a two-day aggregate 137, Lawrence (Independence GC) earned Amateur medalist honors for the first time and will be the top seed when match play begins Thursday morning.
Lawrence, a Richmond native, shaved five strokes off his first-round total thanks to his bogey-free round. Birdies came in bunches, as he made back-to-back birdies on holes 1 and 2, holes 9 and 10 and holes 16 and 17.
“I hit my irons better today,” Lawrence said. “I had four pretty much gimme approach shots that I hit inside of three feet. I didn’t hit the driver as good as I did yesterday, but I just scored better today. I haven’t been scoring great. I’ve been giving myself opportunities to score but I really haven’t been taking advantage of them. But I did today, so that was good.”
Lawrence finished three strokes clear of a trio of players who tied for second at 140: Ashburn’s Jeff Long (Evergreen CC), Leesburg teenager Michael Brennan (River Creek Club) and first-round leader Dustin Groves of Charlottesville (Glenmore CC).
Two past Amateur champions tied for fifth at 141: Martinsville’s Keith Decker (Chatmoss CC) and Haymarket’s Scott Shingler (Dominion Valley CC).
Brennan, a rising junior at Tuscarora High School who recently committed to Wake Forest, was the medalist last year but ran into the Lawrence buzzsaw in the first round of match play. After a first round that featured seven birdies and five bogeys, Brennan played a little steadier on Wednesday, finishing with three birdies and a bogey for a 2-under 70.
“I’ve hit the ball pretty straight these last couple of days, and my irons, I’ve been hitting them pretty well,” Brennan said. “I’ve missed a couple of short putts these last couple of days, though. I need to clean that up for tomorrow and I’ll be good to go.”
Long will be making his Amateur match-play debut Thursday. Though he’s played well in other VSGA championships, he’s failed to finish inside the top 32 in three Amateur starts since 2010.
“I don’t know what it is about this tournament,” Long said. “I just haven’t played very well. I really didn’t have much pressure out there. When you miss it so many times, at some point you’re just like, screw it. I’m just going to go out and play.”
Long teamed with Kyle Bailey for a runner-up finish at last year’s VSGA Four-Ball Match Play Championship at The Federal Club, and the local knowledge gleaned from his rounds last fall certainly came into play over the last two days.
“It was a fantastic tournament, and it was great to make the finals,” he said. “But that felt like more like having five or six practice rounds for this tournament. When I came out for the practice round this week, I felt like I was at home. I really like this place.”
Shingler was the last mid-amateur to win the Amateur championship, his title coming in 2011. Decker has won two titles, his most recent coming 20 years before Shingler’s. Decker posted a 5-under 67, taking seven strokes off his total from Tuesday. He started on No. 10 Wednesday and opened his round with four straight birdies.
“I hit a lot of greens today, and I missed a lot of greens yesterday,” Decker said. “I made the putts I was supposed to make. I didn’t make anything that was outrageous—no 30 footers or anything like that. I made a lot of 10 footers, and that was the key. I saw some go in early, and that made me feel good, really, for the rest of the day.”
Shingler continued his consistent play in VSGA Amateur stroke-play qualifying. Since 2010, he’s finished inside the top 10 six times and has finished no lower than in a tie for 15th. He had four birdies and three birdies Wednesday for a 1-under 71.
“I’m always excited for the event and it’s all about putting in the preparation to do well in it,” Shingler said. “Today, I was just kind of plotting my way through it. I was keeping the ball in front of me, not going flag hunting, not being too aggressive. I mean, I have my spots, and I’m aggressive to those spots, but they’re not aggressive spots, if that makes sense. I just love this tournament. It’s so much fun to play in. Maybe the consistency just comes from putting in the work.”
Wednesday featured another hole-in-one, with past champion David Tolley (Ole Monterey GC) making an ace on 11 with a pitching wedge.
Five players shot 146 and battled for the final three match-play spots in a playoff, with Buck Brittain (The Virginian GC), Ian Hildebrand (Stoneleigh G&CC) and Jordan Utley (Independence GC) surviving to advance to Thursday. Utley earned his spot with a par on the fifth playoff hole, eliminating Cameron Moore (The Dominion Club).
Utley, a two-time Amateur finalist, will open with a rematch of last year’s final against Lawrence, who won that 36-hole match 3 and 2.
Lawrence is 14-3 in matches at the Amateur and has advanced to at least the quarterfinals in each of his four match-play appearances. He went 12-1 in four years at the VSGA Junior Match Play Championship, and he went 4-1 to reach the semifinals of last year’s U.S. Amateur. He’s a combined 30-5 in those three events.
“Probably a little bit of it was growing up and playing match-play matches against my buddies all the time,” Lawrence said. “We usually don’t play stroke play. We play a nine-hole match, or an 18-hole match, or maybe a Nassau, or something like that. But it’s always match play. Growing up like that, you just get used to it, I guess.”
Chris Lang is the Editor of Virginia Golfer Magazine and Manager, Digital Media for the VSGA.