The format may have changed in Wednesday’s second round of the U.S. Senior Challenge, but the team at the top of the leaderboard didn’t.
The format may have changed in Wednesday’s second round of the U.S. Senior Challenge, but the team at the top of the leaderboard didn’t. Team Ohio, captained by Jim Durr, maintained its first-round lead thanks in large part to multiple rounds of even par at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia.
In the opening round of this unique senior amateur event, which pits four-man teams from different states against each other over 54 holes while an individual race runs simultaneously, teams played in the same group and the team score was made up of the three best scores on each hole.
In Wednesday’s second round, however, players were paired according to their individual score from Day 1 and their standing on the individual leaderboard in each of four age divisions. The team format switched to a play-four-count-three format, similar to college golf.
Ohio counted rounds of even-par 71 from TJ Brudzinski and Jeff Mallette with Durr contributing a 75. All three of Ohio’s counters birdied the par-5 third hole while Brudzinski and Mallette made birdie and eagle, respectively, on the par-5 seventh.
Ohio is now at 4 over for two rounds.
Team Texas climbed the standings on Day 2 and at 8 under, is within striking distance for the final round. The Texans’ best score, a 1-under 70, came from captain Gary Mundy.
Team Arkansas, captained by veteran player Bev Hargraves, and a second Texas team, this one captained by Mac McGee, are tied for third at 9 over.
The individual leaderboards are just as tight as the team standings after two rounds, with Crispin Fuentes having the biggest lead of five shots (over Durr) in the super senior division. Fuentes is 1 over.
Trey Womack leads the senior division at 2 over after back-to-back rounds of 72. Dan Pouliot is even and three ahead at the top of the legend division. Gary Jeffreys leads the super legend division at 6 over after first-round leader Bill Engel followed and opening 70 with a second-round 80.
Team captain Jim Durr led the way for his Ohio foursome in the opening round of the U.S. Senior Challenge.
Team captain Jim Durr led the way for his Ohio foursome in the opening round of the U.S. Senior Challenge, and thanks in part to his contribution of four birdies to the team score, Ohio is 3 under and three ahead of the competition.
Just a week after the end of the college golf season, the U.S. Senior Challenge presents a unique senior amateur opportunity for players to get that team atmosphere by competing in four-man teams representing their home state. That was particularly apparent in Tuesday’s first round at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia, when each four-man team was paired together and the team score consisted of the three best scores on each hole.
Playing in that format, Ohio reached 3-under 213 for the day despite starting a bit behind the 8-ball when the team counted a birdie, a bogey and a double on their opening 13th hole (the first round featured a shot-gun start).
The beauty of the event, as noted by Mike Quinlan, executive director of the U.S. Senior Challenge, is that there’s always a chance to come back, and that was Ohio’s story of the day.
“You can sort of relive your college glory days and travel with three other guys on your team and have a really fun week,” Quinlan said before the tournament, “because even if you did really poorly one day, you’re always wanting to be part of that team score, to have one of the low three scores.”
The California team captained by Nicholas Bock and the Texas team captained by Gary Mundy are both even par after the opening day.
From here, the teams split and do battle on their own as players continue to compete not only for the team title, but for the individual title in each of four age divisions. In the second round, players will be grouped according to their first-round score. A state team score will be figured based on the best three 18-hole scores on each four-man team.
Individually, Crispin Fuentes fired the round of the day with a 2-under 69 that left him one ahead of Durr and Tommy Reynolds in the super senior division.
Bill Engel also was in the red for the day and his 1-under 70 left him with a one-shot lead in the super legend division.
Trey Womack, at 1-over 72, leads the senior division and a three-man tie at 2 over in the legend division includes Dan Pouliot, Brad Mosing and Richard Doebler.
The U.S. Senior Challenge will be played June 4-6.
At the end of May, team golf got its annual moment in the spotlight as the NCAA men’s and women’s national championships were broadcast over two weeks on Golf Channel. Mike Quinlan, executive director of the U.S. Senior Challenge, wants to note the connection between those tournaments and what’s about to happen at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia, next week.
“What we’re trying to model now is this is exactly like a college tournament, just like everybody watched on TV where you have teams playing against each other and also at the same time, you’re vying to be the individual champion of the tournament,” Quinlan said.
Outside of two-man best-ball tournaments, the U.S. Senior Challenge, to be played June 4-6, is one of very few opportunities a senior amateur has to compete in a national team competition. State teams are made up of four individuals, with the best three scores counting toward the team total in each of three rounds. While one team champion is crowned, individual champions will be named in each of four age divisions: senior, super senior, legends and super legends. World Amateur Golf Ranking points are also awarded.
The format, Quinlan said, is exactly what makes the U.S. Senior Challenge such an interesting draw for competitive senior amateurs.
“My belief is that this event is super unique,” he said. “You can sort of relive your college glory days and travel with three other guys on your team and have a really fun week, because even if you did really poorly one day, you’re always wanting to be part of that team score, to have one of the low three scores.”
Part of the reason for the void in amateur team golf on the national level has to do with the discontinuation of the U.S. Golf Association’s State Team Championship in 2017. That tournament, which featured three-person teams from each state, however, was not just for seniors.
The U.S. Senior Challenge dates to the mid-1980s but has matured into its current format. The Sun Country Amateur Golf Association, in cooperation with the U.S. Senior Challenge Board of Directors and Golfweek, handles tournament operations, and the event is elevated by a dedicated USGA Boatwright Intern from the SCAGA.
Quinlan’s involvement increased in 2016, when former executive director Jim Bianco was looking to pass the torch. Quinlan, who had been heavily involved in the board of the directors, picked it up. The Albuquerque, New Mexico, resident helped bring in the SCAGA, his local state golf association.
“When we took over, Jim actually had two tournaments, he had the team and the individual event,” Quinlan said. “When we took it over, we combined the two into the college-kind of format because we really didn’t have an interest, No. 1, in running two events and No. 2, there were so many individual events that the unique part of this is that college-kind of format where you’re both playing as a team and individuals.”
State flags fly at a past U.S. Senior Challenge. (Photo courtesy Sun Country Amateur Golf Association)
Teams are formed by a state captain representing participating states (participation, Quinlan notes, varies from year to year depending on where the tournament is played geographically). Some state captains recruit their state’s top players – for example, Quinlan remembers when Arkansas won the team title in 2019 and the state team included brothers Stan Lee and Louis Lee, who had both won U.S. Senior Amateur titles, in 2007 and 2011, respectively.
Sometimes, however, it becomes more of a buddies’ trip. In other cases, teams may not meet until they show up for the practice round. That’s because individuals who are not part of their state’s team can also compete in the tournament, and organizers work to group them into teams from the same state, when possible, or regionally. In this year’s field, almost a third of the 19 teams were formulated that way.
“The longtime captains, they really understand the format well and they’re probably more modeled together as a team versus the people who show up on the first tee and meet for the first time,” Quinlan said.
Quinlan, who captains a New Mexico team and will also play in the event, said the largest U.S. Senior Challenge team field featured 20 teams from 20 different states. He hopes the event continues to gain momentum.
“There’s just never been something like this for seniors and I think going forward it’s a big advantage for us to have the premier team event in the United States.”
Kent Jesperson’s work in elevating the event, and senior golf in general, resulted in this year’s Challenge Man of the Year award.
In a past chapter of Kent Jesperson’s life, months of work would culminate this week – Boston Marathon week. Jesperson is a 32-time marathoner with a 3-hour, 10-minute personal record who has toed the Boston starting line nine times in his life. But running is only part of Jesperson’s sports story.
Jesperson, 70, is also a three-time Wyoming Senior Amateur champion, having won in 2008, 2010 and 2018. Winning those titles kick-started his involvement in the U.S. Senior Challenge, a one-of-its-kind senior event that brings together a four-man team of senior golfers from different states to compete in a 54-hole competition. The event dates to 1986 and has been played at venues all across the country.
As a top Wyoming senior, Jesperson was asked to put together and captain a team from his state after taking home senior am hardware.
“That started everything off,” he said of his relationship with the event.
For the past 12 years, Jesperson has recruited one or two teams to compete in the event. Six years ago, he went on the event’s Board of Directors. His work in elevating the event, and senior golf in general, resulted in this year’s Challenge Man of the Year award. It’s an honor annually presented to a person whose life has been exemplary in family, business and golf.
Jesperson has always felt a responsibility to make the sport better if he’s going to enjoy the benefits it brings. As a board member, Jesperson helped lay out policies, tried to recruit more states to take part in the event and helped pick future host sites.
The Man of the Year award was humbling in that it showed Jesperson he’d succeeded in his effort to give back.
“When they recognized me as Man of the Year, I was taken aback because I thought…you’re just one of the guys that go in there and do whatever it takes to try and make it better,” he said.
Jesperson took a similar hands-on approach to fatherhood, which delayed his competitive golf career a few years. He and wife Linette have two daughters, Tricia and Ashlee, and Jesperson didn’t want to miss the golden years of their childhood. He was also putting in hours of running at dawn, and it didn’t seem manageable to juggle that and golf.
“When they were growing up, I actually quit golf for nine years because it took too much of my time and I said my kids are young, they’ll only be young once,” he said.
Jesperson re-entered the game a few years before his 50th birthday. It didn’t take long to shake off any accumulated rust because he was 55 when he won his first Wyoming Senior Amateur. He was 64 when he won his last. Shortly before winning that third state senior am title, Jesperson tore his meniscus, which ended his running but not his golf.
Jesperson owned a real estate brokerage company for 40 years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and upon retiring in 2019, moved to Phoenix full-time with his wife. Now he plays out of Verrado Golf Club and has a game five days a week in the winter.
“In the summer we travel and see our daughters, so I play less,” he said.
The 2024 U.S. Senior Challenge will be played at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia, on June 3-6. New Mexico won the event in 2023 when it was played in that team’s home state at Canyon Club at Four Hills.
Since turning 55 and becoming eligible, Mark Strickland is one for one.
Since turning 55 and becoming eligible for events on the senior amateur schedule, Mark Strickland is one-for-one. The San Diego resident’s 55th birthday was March 28. He teed it up in the Golfweek Senior Amateur eight days later and walked away with the title on April 7.
At Desert Willow’s Firecliff Course in Palm Desert, California, Strickland had at least a share of the lead after every round. He was bogey-free in an opening 5-under 67, then followed with rounds of 71-70 for an 8-under total.
Strickland birdied the par-5 18th hole to edge Randy Haag or Orinda, California, by a single shot.
“I knew it was really tight,” Strickland said of the final round. “I really didn’t do a lot of scoreboard watching, just kind of played my game. . . . I didn’t know that we were tied going into 18, so he missed a birdie putt of maybe 15 feet and then I had one that was 12 feet and was lucky enough to get that one to fall.”
Haag and Strickland represent some of California’s best talent in the senior game, even if Strickland has only called California home for three years. He was a longtime resident of Georgia before moving west when his wife took a different job. Strickland transferred within Yamaha Golf Car Company and now represents the Southern California territory.
In the past six months, Strickland played in the 2023 Stocker Cup and the Jewel at Hacienda, a four-ball event, but otherwise, his senior calendar is just getting started. He landed at the Golfweek Senior Amateur because it was a short two-hour drive from his home.
For the time being, Strickland may be best known for finishing as the low amateur at the 2023 U.S. Senior Open at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. That finish would have exempted him into the 2023 U.S. Senior Amateur but for the fact that he wasn’t yet 55. It did get him into both the U.S. Mid-Amateur and the U.S. Amateur in 2023, but he missed match play in both events.
“It gets me in the Senior Open this year, which that’s the biggest prize of all for me,” Strickland said. “I just love competing in those USGA events, any of them, but the Senior Open is a treat.”
Strickland will head to Newport (Rhode Island) Country Club in June for that event before traveling overseas in July for the British Senior Amateur.
None of this is new for Strickland, who has played in 21 USGA events in his career, including five U.S. Amateurs and four U.S. Mid-Amateurs. He played four straight U.S. Ams from 2003 to 2006, reaching the Round of 16 at Hazeltine Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota, in 2006 when he was 37. Strickland lost to Alex Prugh.
Strickland played college golf at Wake Forest from 1987 to 1991. As a sophomore, he roomed with 2011 Open Championship winner Darren Clarke. He also overlapped Len Mattiace and Billy Andrade (though Andrade was out of playing eligibility by the time Strickland arrived). After graduation, Strickland played in Asia and South America plus teed it up on the Hooters Tour. After five years, he left the professional game before being reinstated as an amateur in 1998.
Even though the senior amateur circuit has now opened up for him, Strickland isn’t ready to begin touring again, so to speak. He’ll continue working for Yamaha while picking and choosing where to tee it up.
“I’ve been looking forward to competing with some of the senior guys that I’ve known forever,” said the easygoing Strickland, “and it’s kind of fun to see them again and compete with them.”
Super Senior Division
Pete Higgins of Mercer Island, Washington, was able to leapfrog Jim Starnes of Ft. Myers, Florida, for a one-shot win after having co-led with Starnes after the first round. Higgins, who finished at 3 under, lost ground when Starnes had a second-round 65, but posted a final-round 73 as Starnes fell to 77 in the final round.
Bob Cooper of Monroe, Louisiana, posted a final-round 65, but his charge left him one shot short, tied with Starnes at 2 under.
Legend Division
Michael Jonson of Sammamish, Washington, won at even par after rounds of 72-75-69 and James Saivar of San Diego closed out a wire-to-wire victory in the Super Legend Division at 4 over.
“It all came together today,” Starnes said of a bogey-free 65.
Jim Starnes had shot his age twice before Saturday, but never in a tournament. So when Starnes, who is 66 ½, went bogey-free for a 7-under 65 on Desert Willow’s Firecliff Course in Palm Desert, California, for the second round of the 2024 Golfweek Senior Amateur, he not only took a year off, he shot to the top of the leaderboard.
“It all came together today,” Starnes said.
Starnes was laser-like with his irons on Saturday and hit 16 greens in regulation. He made a birdie putt of 35 feet on No. 16, but the other four birdies were off of putts inside 10 feet. On the par-5 18th, his ninth hole of the day, he faced 215 yards to the green on his second shot and decided to lay up with 7-iron. With 66 yards left to the green, he two-hopped a 60-degree lob wedge into the hole.
“Drove it extremely well and so it was fundamentally pretty low stress,” he said. “If I wasn’t making a birdie, I was making fairly easy pars so it was fun and I hope I can do it again.”
After an even-par round of 72 in Friday’s opening round, Starnes now leads the super senior division by three shots over Pete Higgins of Mercer, Washington. Higgins, who had a co-lead at the start of the day, posted a 3-under 69 on Saturday.
Starnes, who hails from Ft. Myers, Florida, is ranked second in the Super Senior division of Golfweek’s National Senior Amateur Rankings. He finished 2023 third on the points list for his division, and in 2016 he was named the Senior Player of the Year as the top points-getter.
To claim a POY title is a labor of love that forces men like Starnes to tee it up frequently and to play well. For Starnes, that means 22 to 25 national senior starts, plus a half dozen four-ball events and a few Florida State Golf Association events.
Already this year, Starnes has won the Florida Azalea Senior. He was top 5 at the Heron Creek Senior and the Moot Thomas Invitational. Starnes, who has been retired three years from Pitney Bowes postage meter company, still enjoys the ride and camaraderie even as he chases a spot in the rankings.
In his career, Starnes has qualified for three USGA events: the 2016 and 2021 U.S. Senior Amateurs, plus the 1974 U.S. Junior Am. He plans to keep trying for the Senior Am.
“I’ll keep swinging until the courses get too long or I get too short,” he said.
Starnes plays out of Fiddlesticks Country Club in Ft. Meyers, Florida. He has sought help from many different teachers around the country over the years, but currently is working with Mike Shannon out of TPC Sawgrass. A veteran player like Starnes knows it’s always a work in progress.
“It’s a combination of putting little pieces from all these different people together,” he said. “When things aren’t going right, watch YouTube or Instagram.”
Senior division
First-round co-leader Mark Strickland, from San Diego, followed his opening 67 with a 71 to take a slim solo lead. At 6 under for the tournament, Strickland, who was the low amateur at the 2023 U.S. Senior Open, has a one-shot lead. Greg Sanders, of Anthem, Arizona, and Randy Haag, of Orinda, California, are right behind him at 2 under.
John Brellenthin made up the most ground near the top of the senior leaderboard with a second-round 66. Brellentin, of Dallas, made six birdies in a back-nine 31 including four in a row from Nos. 13-16. He is 4 under for the tournament after opening with 74.
Legends, Super Legends
Jeffrey Knox of Jupiter, Florida, leads the Legends division at 1 over while James Saivar of San Diego held onto his lead in the Super Legends division. Saivar is 3 over.
Only 11 players broke par across the four divisions, which features 167 players total, with another seven at even par.
Outside of a pair of 67s atop the senior division leaderboard, Desert Willow’s Firecliff Course didn’t give up much in the opening round of the Golfweek Senior Amateur in Palm Desert, California. Only 11 players broke par across the four divisions, which features 167 players total, with another seven at even par.
Mark Strickland of San Diego and Greg Sanders of Anthem, Arizona, claimed the pair of 67s with only one bogey between them. Sanders bogeyed the par-4 second but more than made up for it with five birdies over his first eight holes.
Strickland, meanwhile, was bogey-free for the day, throwing out a steady supply of birdies as the day wore on.
Northern California native Randy Haag was responsible for the third sub-70 score, and his 69 left him in third in the senior division. Haag, a well-known player in the NorCal area who has multiple NCGA Player of the Year titles, had a colorful day. His card included five birdies offset by four bogeys, but most notably a hole-in-one on the par-3 14th, which played 141 yards from the senior tees on Thursday.
The Golfweek Senior Amateur is the second senior event in the desert this week, following the Golfweek Senior Division National Championship, which Denver’s Jon Lindstrom won on Wednesday. Lindstrom had an opening 1-over 73 on Firecliff which left him in a tie for 13th along with Kirk Maynord, Jerry Gunthrope and Craig Hurlbert, among others, who all finished in the top 6 at Desert Willow’s second layout, the Mountain View Course.
In the super senior division, Pete Higgins of Mercer Island, Washington, and Bob Cooper of Monroe, Louisiana, both had opening rounds of 1-under 71. Higgins’ included an eagle at the par-5 seventh.
Michael Jonson of Sammamish, Washington, leads the legends division with an even-par 72. Pete Van Ingen, who hails from Palm Beach, Florida, is a shot back, and a group of three men are tied for third at 2 over.
San Diego resident James Saivar led the super legend division with a 2-under 70.
Lindstrom never looks at the scoreboard, he prefers to play his game and let the chips fall where they may.
Jon Lindstrom never looks at the scoreboard on the golf course, preferring to play his game and let the chips fall where they may.
In the final round of the Golfweek Senior Division National Championship, he was 16 holes deep in the round – and five shots under par – before a playing competitor let him know he had a five-shot lead.
“Once I heard that, I played it pretty conservative on the last two holes,” said Lindstrom. “I really wasn’t paying attention other than I knew I was beating the guys in my group but I wasn’t sure if somebody ahead of me was going low.”
After parring in for a closing 67 on Desert Willow’s Mountain View Course in Palm Desert, California, Lindstrom claimed his first major senior amateur victory of the year. At 8 under, he was three better than runner-up John Brellenthin from Dallas, who fired a 68 in the next-to-last group on Wednesday.
Kirk Maynord of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the second-round leader, birdied three of his final four holes on his way to a final-round 68 but it wasn’t enough to catch Lindstrom. Maynord finished solo third at 4 under, followed by Jerry Gunthorpe of Ovid, Michigan, in fourth at 2 under.
Lindstrom, 56, who still works full-time for the insurance brokerage firm Marsh & McLennan, overseeing the Denver and Salt Lake City offices, flew to Palm Desert from his Denver home a few days early, which helped him acclimate.
“I had been hitting it good the whole week just haven’t been making a lot of putts,” he said of his final round. “I hit it closer today than the previous two days and I was making putts, so it was a good combination.”
His first birdie came on the opening hole, when he hit it to 3 feet and converted. He was 4 under on the front nine and never made a birdie putt longer than 6 feet. Lindstrom’s ballstriking played a big role as he kept leaving himself with looks.
The 56-year-old thinks he hits the ball farther than average in this age group, though he’s not particularly long in the bigger picture. He had irons into every par 5 this week, even hitting a 9-iron on one hole.
“That doesn’t happen on mid-am courses,” he said, “for me, at least.”
Lindstrom is in only his second year competing on the senior circuit, but this lifestyle is familiar. He competed in mid-amateur events until turning 55 and welcomed the shorter yardage and competitors closer in age. In 2023, his debut year on the senior circuit, Lindstrom put together his schedule strategically.
“Last year I knew I had the full year, I wanted to get into as many events as possible to get as many points as possible,” he said.
After winning the Trans-Miss Senior and the Heron Creek Senior, plus making match play at the U.S. Senior Amateur and logging several other top-5 finishes in senior amateur events, Lindstrom’s ranking climbed. He’s currently No. 422 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and No. 6 among players 55 and older. He qualified for the 2023 U.S. Mid-Amateur based on his World Ranking and will be exempt into the 2024 U.S. Senior Amateur, too.
The Trans-Miss win gave Lindstrom not only a boost in points but a boost in confidence. This circuit is still loaded with talent, and, as Lindstrom noted, it’s always meaningful to win. He felt that again Wednesday at Desert Willow.
“Although I had two or three wins, I had a number of top 5s, which is always satisfying, which means I’m always competing,” he said of 2023. “It was just a matter of having a day like today where I could move up significantly.”
Grady Brame’s day at Desert Willow Golf Club in Palm Desert, California, was nothing if not tidy.
Grady Brame’s day at Desert Willow Golf Club in Palm Desert, California, was nothing if not tidy. Brame has found the Mountain View course at Desert Willow, site of the Golfweek Senior Division National Championship, is getable, provided a player can put it in the right spots.
“You have some opportunities to make some putts if you can hit the green,” he said.
Brame, 66, did that 16 times on Monday, converting three birdies in the process and taking a one-shot lead on the 83-man field with a 3-under 69.
Desert Willow is a long way from Brame’s Hammond, Louisiana, home, but it hardly looked that way as he reeled off a “low-stress” round all the way across the country. He only missed the green at Nos. 1 and 17 and chipped inside 3 feet on both holes to make up for it. Two of his three birdies came off putts inside 5 feet. Brame felt he drove the ball well on Monday, too, and hit a number of good iron shots, generally leaving himself in places that made it possible for him to score.
“My speed was really good,” Brame said of his performance on greens he called fast enough but not scary fast, “so when I was missing them, for the most part with the exception of three holes, my pars were tap-ins, inside of a foot.”
When he was able to make a short tester of a par putt at the par-5 18th to remain at 3 under and with the solo lead, it made his lunch taste that much better.
Brame is a well-traveled player. He’ll tee it up about a dozen times each year in senior amateur events, and he keeps throwing his hat in the ring in U.S. Golf Association qualifiers, despite still working in commercial real estate for Sterling Properties, a company he has been with for 42 years.
Brame has played 23 USGA events over the course of his career, noting he had a knack for playing well in the qualifiers for those events. All told, he has played six U.S. Amateurs, 13 U.S. Mid-Amateurs, one U.S. Senior Amateur and three State Team Championships. He continues to play qualifiers for the Mid-Am, Senior Am and Senior Open.
“Still trying to chase the dream,” he said.
In Louisiana golf circles, the name “Grady Brame” is one synonymous with very good golf – doubly so, in fact. Brame’s son Grady Brame Jr., played professionally for more than six years, competing largely on the PGA Tour Canada but also Monday qualifying his way into three Korn Ferry Tour events plus the Sanderson Farms Championship on the PGA Tour.
Brame Jr., who played collegiately for Southeastern Louisiana, won the Louisiana State Amateur in 2014 and 2015, making the Brames the only father-son duo to win that event. Brame Sr.’s title came in 2002.
Brame Sr. has also won the Louisiana Mid-Amateur twice, and there was a time when he had a perfect streak of starts in that event, which dates to 1991. (Somewhere along the way, he finally missed a tournament.) The Louisiana Golf Association events still find their way onto Brame’s calendar, and he’ll head home for the Louisiana State Senior after playing this week’s Golfweek desert doubleheader.
Behind Brame, California residents Dick Engel and Robby Funk are tied for second with Kirk Maynord of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. All four men had rounds of 2-under 70. Engel and Funk both birdied the par-5 closing hole to get there.
Montana resident Craig Hurlbert, a playing captain at the Golfweek Challenge Cup in 2022, is one of four men tied for fifth at 1 under.
The group at even par includes New Yorker Kevin VandenBerg, the 2023 Golfweek Senior Player of the Year. VandenBerg was 2 under through his opening four holes, but lost ground with five bogeys over the remainder of his round, including at No. 17.
When a week-long run of senior amateur golf begins on April 1, the contenders list will be deep.
When a week-long run of senior amateur golf begins at Desert Willow Golf Club in Palm Desert, California, on April 1, the contenders list will be deep.
The Golfweek Senior Division National Championship field of 90 players, ages 55 and older, will compete in one division from one distance over 54 holes. The past two champions of the event, Jerry Gunthorpe and Gary Albrecht, will return, and that only scratches the surface. The field also includes three of the top six players in the current Golfweek Senior Rankings: top-ranked Kevin VandenBerg plus Matt Avril (No. 3) and Steve Maddalena (No. 6).
Desert Willow is a public facility owned by the city of Palm Desert that includes the 18-hole Mountain View layout, where the Golfweek event will be played, as well as another 18 holes, named Firecliff. Both layouts opened in the late 1990s and have been extremely popular among community members. The design team responsible for Desert Willow includes Michael Hurdzan, Dana Fry and former PGA Tour player John Cook, plus local landscape architect Eric Johnson.
Mountain View features more water than Firecliff but also mountain views all around. The entire facility was designed to both highlight the desert landscape on which it sits – starting with the mile-long approach to the resort that allows visitors to acquaint themselves with the landscape — and operate in an environmentally sensitive way.
A year ago, Albrecht, a 66-year-old who had dropped down an age division for this event, needed an extra hole to claim his title. After winning, Albrecht got right back to it, teeing it up a day later in the Golfweek Senior Amateur. Again this year, the Senior Amateur will directly follow the Senior Division National Championship at Willow Creek on April 5-7, but will feature four separate divisions for ages 55-64, 65-69, 70-74 and 75 and over.
The Golfweek Senior Amateur also has the distinction of being one of 10 events at which senior players can earn points toward a spot on the U.S. team in the Concession Cup, a Walker Cup-style match put on by the Amateur Golf Alliance that pits the best mid-amateurs and senior amateurs from the U.S. against those from Europe.
Two-thirds of the field at the Golfweek Senior Division National Championship field will stay in Palm Desert to compete in the Golfweek Senior Amateur. That includes Albrecht, Avril and VandenBerg. Other notable names in the senior division include longtime Louisiana-based amateur Grady Brame, who has appeared in several USGA championships; Craig Hurlbert, a playing captain at the Golfweek Challenge Cup in 2022; and Allen Peake, a former member of the Georgia State House of Representatives who has become the marathon man of senior golf.
Golfweek’s top-ranked super senior Jim Starnes plus defending champion Jeff Burda highlight the 65-69 year-old division.
John Seehausen is back to defend in the Super Legends division.
