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By Chris Lang
GLEN ALLEN — For the second straight year, the title match of the Virginia State Golf Association Amateur Championship will have a Richmond flavor.
Trey Smith, a 25-year-old reinstated amateur who played his college golf at James Madison University, will square off against 19-year-old Andrew Kennedy, a rising sophomore at Radford University who played his high school golf at Mills Godwin in suburban Richmond, in the 36-hole championship match of the 105th VSGA Amateur on Saturday at The Federal Club.
The title match will begin at 7:30 a.m.
Last year, Mark Lawrence Jr. defeated Jordan Utley in a battle of Richmond area players at Creighton Farms in Aldie. This year, there’s the added bonus of the two RVA residents playing close to home.
Smith defeated fellow mid-amateur Daryl Chappell (CC of Petersburg) 2 up in the morning quarterfinals before ousting South Boston’s Peter Gasperini 4 and 3 in the afternoon. Kennedy, who walked on at Radford last fall, defeated mid-amateur Dustin Groves in a tense 21-hole morning match before surviving a back-and-forth affair with Lynchburg’s Connor Burgess (Boonsboro CC) in the semifinals, defeating Burgess 1 up.
Smith is making his deepest tournament run, having previously reached the quarterfinals in 2015 at Farmington CC, where he lost to Lawrence. Kennedy advanced to the title match in his VSGA Amateur debut, and prior to this week, he had never played in a competitive match-play event.
“Right now, I’m in a little bit of shock,” said Kennedy, a Richmond CC member. “Going into it, I’ve got a tough bracket to get out of. Everyone I was playing, they’re all just as good if not better than me. My putter came alive throughout this entire match play. I made putts that were 30-plus feet, and I kept making those little tap-ins. Just making my way through the course. I didn’t really hit it well, but I mean, if your putter’s on, your putter’s on.”
Burgess can certainly attest to that. In a terrific semifinal match that was all square heading to the final hole, both players had about 20 feet left for birdie after excellent downhill approach shots into 18. Kennedy and his caddie read his putt, which was right of the hole, as fairly straight, and it rolled true. Kennedy let out a huge fist pump as it sank. With a chance to match, Burgess had a similar putt, though below the hole, and it just missed, giving Kennedy the victory.
“He was making putts all day, I really couldn’t do much about it,” said Burgess, a rising sophomore at Virginia Tech. “I told my mom in the cart before we went down to the green that he was probably going to make that putt. He’s done it a lot this week. Good for him. I knew I had to make mine, but it just ran by the edge.”
Kennedy needed a sensational shot just to advance to the semifinals. On the par-4 3rd hole in the 21st hole of his match with Groves, Kennedy was about 45 yards away in the left rough when he hit a perfect wedge shot that kissed the flagstick and stopped inches from the hole. Groves conceded the putt and failed to get up and down from the back apron to match Kennedy’s par.
Most of the drama for Smith came in the morning. He came to 18 holding a 1-up lead over Chappell, who earlier this year won The Signature at The Federal Club, a three-day stroke-play event. Both players found the fairway with their drives, and Chappell was first to hit his approach, which wandered right and landed on a slope near a lake. Smith dropped his approach five feet from the hole, and when Chappell failed to hole out with his chip, the match was over.
In the afternoon, Smith played punishingly steady golf, though he showed moments of spectacular brilliance.
Gasperini, a member at Halifax CC, had just trimmed Smith’s lead to 1 up at the turn by hitting a 4-iron to seven feet on the par-5 ninth and converting for birdie. That momentum swing didn’t last. On the par-5 10th, Smith hit his second shot into sticky rough left of the green, and he hit a nifty high 60-degree wedge shot that landed softly on the green and released right into the hole for eagle.
Smith’s next shot, his tee shot on the par-3 11th, landed two feet from the hole for a kick-in birdie, and suddenly he was 3 up.
“He hits a heck of a golf shot on 10, and you can’t do anything about that,” Gasperini said. “You’ve just got to applaud him for pulling it off. Then he does it again on 11. I just tried to keep my chin up and keep trying to hit some good golf shots, but it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to.”
Gasperini needed two attempts at qualifying to make it into the field, and he shot 72 in the VSGA last-chance qualifier at Mattaponi Springs to earn one of the final spots in the championship. He made the most of his week, recording an ace in stroke-play qualifying and making it to the semifinals in his first match-play event.
“It’s definitely a lot for me to build off, and it definitely shows me that I have a lot of grit in me,” he said. “I’m not ever going to give up easily. That’s a huge confidence builder going forward.”
Smith, who briefly was an assistant golf course professional before regaining his amateur status at the beginning of 2018, has a chance to become the first from the 25-and-older set to win this championship since Scott Shingler in 2011. He thrived on the back nine on Friday, making nine birdies and an eagle in 15 holes.
He posted one victory during his college career at JMU, winning the Golfweek Division I Program Challenge in South Carolina as a sophomore. A win Saturday would be the biggest of his career, he said.
“Just to make it to the finals is a huge accomplishment,” Smith said. “To win the VSGA state championship, that’s what I’ve tried to do every year since I’ve played in it. Everyone out here is trying to win this thing. It would be a huge thing, for sure.”
Chris Lang is the Editor of Virginia Golfer Magazine and Manager, Digital Media for the VSGA.