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By Chris Lang
HARRISONBURG — Winners were crowned on Wednesday at the 6th Virginia State Golf Association Mid-Senior Amateur Championship and in three age divisions at the 27th VSGA Super Senior Amateur Championship.
Martinsville’s Keith Decker claimed his second straight Mid-Senior Amateur title and 33rd VSGA title overall thanks to a 4-and-3 win over Herndon’s John Lombardozzi in the championship match.
Super Senior Amateur winners were Roanoke’s Jack Allara in the 65+ age division; Williamsburg’s Mike McDonald in the 70+ age division; and Glen Allen’s John Casstevens in the 75+ age division.
MID-SENIOR AMATEUR
The Mid-Senior Amateur is for players ages 60-64, meaning one player could conceivably win the event a maximum of five times. That’s certainly in play for Decker, who scraped by Lexington’s David Brogan 1 up in the morning semifinal match before dispatching Lombardozzi in the afternoon.
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Decker said. “But winning always feels good.”
Decker won a see-saw match with Brogan in the morning. After trailing early, he won four straight holes to take a 3-up lead into the turn. Brogan—a three-time VSGA Four-Ball champion—won Nos. 12 and 13 to cut the lead to 1 up. Decker again went 2 up with a birdie on 15, but Brogan won the next two holes to tie the match going into 18. Decker won the final hole with a birdie to advance.
Decker took advantage of some Lombardozzi bogeys to grab control of the championship match, taking a 3-up lead through seven holes. Lombardozzi didn’t go away, however. He won No. 8 with a birdie and No. 9 with a par to slice to lead to 1 up going to the turn.
Lombardozzi didn’t win a hole the rest of the way. Decker slowly rebuilt his lead and clinched the win with a birdie on No. 15.
“I don’t know if he was nervous, but he made a couple of bogeys starting out, which he normally wouldn’t have done,” Decker said. “I played better on the back. I made a bunch of pars and birdied the last hole that we played. It was a good match.”
SUPER SENIOR AMATEUR 65+
Like everyone else in the field, Allara was wondering who the heck Henrico’s Kevin MacMillan was. A relative newbie to competitive state-level senior golf, MacMillan made quite the impression at Spotswood, taking out two-time VSGA Super Senior Golfer of the Year Tim Vigotsky before defeating two-time VSGA Super Senior Four-Ball winner Jim Woodson in the semifinals.
MacMillan stretched Allara to the limit, with Allara claiming the title thanks to some steady play and some tough luck for MacMillan on the 18th hole. Allara won 1 up with a conceded par after MacMillan escaped a greenside bunker and had a long putt for bogey to extend the match.
“We were all like, ‘Who is this MacMillan guy?’” Allara said. “And I can tell you, he’s a hell of a player. He took out some good players. He putted well today. … It was a hell of a match. There were a lot of ebbs and flows. He played solid.”
Allara defeated Haymarket’s David Prokop 3 and 1 in the semifinals to advance to the final match. Allara added a second Super Senior title to his resume, having claimed the Super Senior Stroke Play 65+ championship last year at Danville GC. He’s also been tantalizingly close to winning a Super Senior Four-Ball title, falling just short of a playoff in 2020.
“Virginia has such a rich history of golfers,” Allara said. “Not growing up here in Virginia, but coming here and hearing about Vinny (Giles) and Keith (Decker) and Tom McKnight and Curtis Strange … you so many good players. So many good super seniors. David Partridge is a legend. David Pulk is here.”
After the win, Allara reflected on what had been a tough year personally, and he dedicated the win and the trophy to lost family members.
“I’ve had a pretty rough year,” Allara said. “I lost my sister and my oldest son on Christmas. … I’ve been able to play, and I’ve kind of put that away in a little side pocket and gotten through it. But it was a rough Christmas. So this is dedicated to my late sister and my oldest son.”
SUPER SENIOR AMATEUR 70+
McDonald, a past VSGA Senior Amateur champion, claimed his second title in the Super Senior Amateur. He won the 65+ title in 2017 at James River Country Club and topped Lynn Wessman 1 up to win the title Wednesday at Spotswood.
“I enjoy playing, I enjoy winning,” McDonald said. “The only other VSGA event I ended up playing this year was (the Super Senior Stroke Play) and I finished second to Mike Brown there. It’s nice to turn that around a little bit. It’s fun. It’s fun to win.”
McDonald needed to rally multiple times, including at the end of the match, when he was 2 down with three holes to play. McDonald held steady as Wessman struggled at the end, winning the final three holes with par to take the match.
“I wasn’t really thinking of the results, I was just trying to play each hole as they came,” McDonald said. “Lynn’s pretty darn steady. That’s the way I play. So it was kind of like playing the shadow of yourself for a while. I think we both gave more than we took in this match.”
Both McDonald and Wessman—who reached match play via a playoff after stroke-play qualifying on Monday—comfortably won their semifinal matches. Wessman took out Ronald Cornelison 4 and 2, while McDonald defeated Eddie Litten 5 and 3.
SUPER SENIOR AMATEUR 75+
Casstevens and longtime friend George Owens tied the 16th hole in the championship match, leaving Owens 1 up with two holes to play. Casstevens jokingly said after that hole that he was willing to flip a coin for the title, seeing as they were so close to the clubhouse. But they played on.
And on…
And on…
And on…
Casstevens snugged his approach on 17 to within five feet and made the birdie putt to tie the match. On 18, his birdie putt lipped out. Both players made par, sending the match to extra holes. They exchanged pars until Casstevens sank an 8-foot birdie putt on No. 8—the 26th hole of the match—to win the title.
“Whichever way it went, it would have been fine,” Casstevens said. “The good thing about it was that nobody made a mistake. It was a birdie on the last hole. So nobody lost it.”
Casstevens and Owens won the Super Senior Four-Ball 75+ title together at Princess Anne CC in August, and they had a suspicion that they’d face off in the final match at Spotswood. But that required them finishing 1-2 in stroke-play qualifying to ensure they couldn’t square off until the final. The bracket held to form, and the two friends played a classic match.
“It’s always nice to win,” Casstevens said. “It doesn’t come around often, so you have to enjoy it.”
Lang is the VSGA’s manager of media and communications.