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By Chris Lang
CHARLOTTESVILLE — Familiar names dotted the top of the stroke-play qualifying leaderboard Tuesday at the 74th Virginia State Golf Association Senior Amateur Championship, hosted by Birdwood Golf at Boar’s Head Resort, and none more familiar than the medalist.
Martinsville’s Keith Decker (Ballyhack GC), the all-time VSGA wins leader with 31, followed his opening-round 66 with 3-under 68 on Tuesday for a two-day 134. He’ll be the top seed in the 32-player bracket when match play begins on Wednesday morning.
Defending champion Buck Brittain (The Virginian GC) of Tazewell finished second in qualifying at 136 after posting the best round of the day, a 4-under 67.
The round of 16 will be played on Wednesday afternoon. The quarterfinals and semifinals are scheduled for Thursday, with the 18-hole championship match set to begin at 8 a.m. on Friday.
THE STORY
Decker racked up his fourth stroke-play medalist honor in this event, having previously earned the distinction three straight years from 2014-16. He went on to win two of those three Senior Amateurs.
Decker is also savvy enough to understand that the format flips on Wednesday and everyone remaining in the field begins match play in the same position—needing five victories to claim the title. As recently as 2019, the stroke-play medalist fell to the No. 32 seed in the first round, so nothing is guaranteed.
“Everybody in the top 32 is going to be a good player,” Decker said. “There are no pushovers, none of that. You’ve got to take each match and grind it out.”
Decker’s lone bogey in the 36 holes of qualifying came on his final hole on Tuesday. Over the two days, he made nine birdies.
“I played solid. I made a few mistakes, hit it in a few bad spots, but I recovered very well,” Decker said. “I didn’t take any unnecessary chances and played pretty solid.”
Decker last played Birdwood when it hosted the VSGA Amateur in 1990. The course has undergone a complete reinvention since then, with architect Davis Love III and his design team changing the routing and adding five holes to previously unused land. Decker said the course was playing a tough softer than expected due to recent heavy rains but added he expects it will ask some interesting questions in match play.
“There’s a lot of risk-reward on certain holes,” Decker said. “It’s going to be a good match-play course, because you can make some birdies out there.”
Brittain continued his run of strong play in the Senior Amateur. Aside from his victory in 2020 at Westwood Country Club, he was the stroke-play medalist both in 2018 (when he reached the semifinals) and in 2019.
Brittain, who shot a 2-under 69 on Monday, started his Tuesday round on No. 10 and got off to a quick start thanks to an eagle on the par-5 12th hole.
“I hit a good drive, and I had 219 in,” Brittain said. “I hit a good hybrid, and it never left the pin. It kind of surprised me. It bit a little harder than I thought it would. But then I had a 20 or 25 footer, just outside the hole, hit a good putt, and it was in the whole way.
“Of course, I turned around and three-putted 13 (for bogey), and I was like, come on.”
That bogey was the only blemish on his front nine, as he added birdies at 14, 16 and 17 to turn at 4 under. He bogeyed 7 and birdied 8 on his back nine to finish at the same number.
“I saw that Keith had dropped one, so I was sort of trying to catch him,” Brittain said. “But in the back of my mind, I was just trying to get into match play, so maybe I was a little more conservative than I should have been.”
Fredericksburg CC’s Jon Hurst followed his opening 68 with a 1-under 70 to finish alone in third as 138. Charlottesville’s Neil Davis and Bowen Sargent each shot 139 over the two days of qualifying and tied for fourth.
NOTABLE AND QUOTEABLE
- Brittain on playing in this tournament as the defending champion: “I think you feel like you play with a lot more confidence. I’ve done it, so I know I can do it. … It’s so much different than earlier this year, playing the regular Am. I’m so outdone, playing with those young kids, that I have to play my absolute best if I want to compete. I mean, you have to play well here, you have to play steady, because all of these guys are good. But I feel like I can play with any of them.”
- In a rare outcome, 32 players on the number made the match-play field, meaning a playoff for the final spots was unnecessary.
- VSGA champions among the top 10 seeds include Decker, Brittain, Hurst, Matt Sughrue (Trump National GC, Washington DC), Jeffrey Klatt (Medal of Honor GC), Steve Serrao (Willow Oaks CC), and Rich Buckner (Robert Trent Jones GC). Decker, Brittain, Serrao and Buckner are past Senior Amateur champions.
- David Price (Stoneleigh G&CC) shot a two-day 144 to tie for 14th. Price son, Alex, is a standout at Christopher Newport University who advanced to the VSGA Amateur quarterfinals this year and the Amateur semifinals last year.
- Big movers on day two included Bill Apple (The GC at Lansdowne), Mark Funderburke (Ole Monterey GC), Willie Diggs (Westfields GC), and Scott Richards (The Water’s Edge CC), all of whom shot at least five strokes better than they did on Monday to move into the match-play field. Apple shaved eight shots off his first-round score, posting a 2-under 69 on Tuesday. After making five bogeys and a double on Monday, he finished with four birdies and a double on Tuesday.
- Notables to miss match play included Scott Reisenweaver, a semifinalist from 2020; Dave Pulk, a two-time Senior Open of Virginia champion; and past VSGA Amateur champions Allen Barber and David Passerell.
- Easiest hole in qualifying: The par-5 12th, which played 0.34 strokes under par and produced seven eagles. The hardest: The par-4 3rd, which played 0.58 strokes over par, yielded just seven birdies and produced 21 double bogeys or worse.
Lang is the VSGA’s manager of media and communications.