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By Chris Lang
HOT SPRINGS – Eighty-four players entered the 72nd
Virginia State Golf Association Senior Amateur Championship. After two days of
stroke-play qualifying, only one finished under par at The Omni Homestead
Resort’s classic Cascades Course.
Tazewell’s Buck Brittain (The Virginian GC) posted a
1-under-par 69 on Tuesday for a two-day aggregate 4-under 136 to earn
qualifying medalist honors and the top seed in the 32-player match-play
bracket. Brittain was also the medalist last year at the Golden Horseshoe in
Williamsburg and advanced to the semifinal round before falling to eventual
champion Cam Young.
Brittain won the last two Senior Opens of Virginia and won
last year’s VSGA Mid-Amateur Championship, so his success at the Cascades
Course should come of surprise to no one. He made six birdies on Tuesday but
also finished with three bogeys and a double bogey. It was still enough to post
an under-par round and finish four strokes clear of Gainesville’s Rich Buckner
(Robert Trent Jones GC).
Buckner won the 2017 VSGA Senior Amateur at Keswick Golf
Club and was a finalist in the event in 2016 at The Homestead.
Martinsville’s Keith Decker, a Chatmoss CC member who won
the championship the last time it was held at the Cascades, signed for a 2-over
72 on Tuesday and finished tied with Midlothian’s Steve Serrao (Willow Oaks CC)
for third. Both players posted identical qualifying rounds of 69-72—141.
Midlothian’s Scott Reisenweaver (Salisbury CC) was fifth at
73-72—143.
Two past Senior Open of Virginia champions—Williamsburg’s
Dave Pulk (Two Rivers CC) and Virginia Beach’s Roger Newsom (Elizabeth Manor
G&CC)—tied for sixth after returning two-day totals of 145.
The final spots in match play were decided by a
four-for-three playoff, with John Lombardozzi, Phil Mahone and Skip Zobel
emerging to complete the field of 32.
Among those to make the match-play cut were both members of
the winning side at this spring’s VSGA Senior Four-Ball Championship (Bob
Bailey and Robert Nussey); 2019 VSGA Super Senior Stroke Play Champion Leon
Roday; and Steve Serrao’s younger brother Jay, who is participating in his
first event as a senior.
Notably missing from match play are 13-time VSGA champion
David Partridge, 2018 Senior Amateur finalist Mark Boedicker, and this year’s
Senior Stroke Play champion, David Jordan. Partridge and Boedicker missed the
cut, and Jordan withdrew before Tuesday’s round.
Qualifying this week unfolded much like it did in 2016 at
the Cascades. That year, only one player (Decker) shot an under-par qualifying
score. The cut was at 14-over 154, one stroke higher than it was this week,
when players who shot 13-over 153 earned the final match-play spots.
Lang is the editor of
Virginia Golfer magazine and the VSGA’s manager, digital media.