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By Chris Lang
HARRISONBURG — The semifinals are set in the 6th Virginia State Golf Association Mid-Senior Amateur Championship and in three age divisions at the 27th VSGA Super Senior Amateur Championship, held at Spotswood Country Club.
Defending champion Keith Decker began his title defense with a comfortable victory in the Mid-Senior Amateur quarterfinals, but two of the stroke-play medalists in the Super Senior Amateur failed to escape the first day of match play. Jim Woodson ousted David Partridge in the 65+ division, and Lynn Wessman bested Mike Ancel in the 70+ group.
In the 75+ group, top seed John Casstevens had a bye to Wednesday’s semifinals. The No. 2 seed and two-time defending champion George Owens won his match Tuesday to advance to the semifinals.
The semifinals will begin at 8 a.m. Wednesday, with the Mid-Seniors going off first. The final match in each division will begin around lunchtime.
THE STORY
An adage of match play rang true during the Super Senior Amateur on Tuesday. Sometimes just making it to match play is the hardest part of the tournament.
That was the case for Woodson (Mill Quarter Plantation GC) and Wessman (Army Navy CC), both of whom survived playoffs for the final match-play spots in their respective divisions before toppling stroke-play medalists in the quarterfinals.
“What I’ve learned over the years with match play is if you make the field, you have a chance of winning,” said Wessman, who defeated Ancel 4 and 2 to advance to the 70+ semifinals. “Whether it’s a bracket of 32 or 16 or eight, or whatever, you have a chance. You may not feel like you’re up to the same standard as the leader, but it turns out that on any given day, any person in the field can beat anybody else.
“I played pretty well today. I had three birdies and two bogeys, 1 under par through 16 holes. Hit a lot of shots close and had a lot of good birdie opportunities, scrambled pretty well when I missed a green. Mike was just a little bit off today. He wasn’t his usual steady self. I got up early and kind of held on.”
Woodson made a birdie on No. 1 on Monday to advance in the playoff, and he started his match with Partridge in the 65+ division in the same fashion. It was the start of terrific round, as he was 5 under through 16 holes. He closed out Partridge on the 16th for a 3-and-2 win.
Woodson is a two-time winner of the VSGA Super Senior Four-Ball Championship and lost in a playoff at the VSGA Senior Stroke Play Championship in 2018 at Mount Vernon Country Club, so he’s no stranger to success. “He played great,” Partridge said.
“I birdied the first hole, and that got things going,” Woodson said. “Then I birdied the next par 5, and it just started snowballing. I got pretty comfortable with it. I’m pretty fortunate. He made some great putts, but he came up on the lip about three or four times. He played well. It was a really good match. I got comfortable with the greens and the speed of them.”
Woodson’s opponent in the 65+ semifinals ousted another impressive competitor. Kevin MacMillan (Brandermill CC) defeated Tim Vigotsky—a two-time VSGA Super Senior Golfer of the Year—4 and 3 to advance to a matchup with Woodson on Wednesday.
MacMillan held a 5-up lead at the turn and closed Vigotsky out when both players made par on the par-5 15th.
On the other side of the draw, past VSGA Super Senior Stroke Play winner Jack Allara (Hidden Valley CC) defeated Skip Zobel (Princess Anne CC), and David Prokop (Evergreen CC) beat Tony Green (The Virginian GC), both wins coming by identical 5-and-3 counts.
Allara opened his round with an eagle, took a 2-up lead to the turn and closed Zobel out with consecutive birdies.
“I had a 6-iron to about 10 feet. … That was probably the best ball I’ve hit on an opening tee shot in a long time,” Allara said. “The Rules official up there said, ‘I want to see your birth certificate. Nobody’s gotten close to this.’ I think I had 178, I flew the ball about 174 and it checked.”
At No. 2, Allara is the top seed remaining, but he also knows how deep the 65+ division was at this event. Several strong players—including two-time Senior Open of Virginia champion Dave Pulk—did not make it through to the championship flight.
“I looked at it, and I counted up like 13 guys that were really good players for eight spots,” Allara said.
NOTABLE
Lang is the VSGA’s manager of media and communications.