Reading’s Chip Lutz continued his bid for a second straight
U.S. Senior Amateur championship with a 2 and 1 victory over Jeff Burda of
Modesto, Calif. in the opening round of match play Monday at the Old Warson
Country Club in St. Louis.
The 61-year-old Lutz, the reigning six-time Golf Association
of Philadelphia Senior Player of the Year, got 3-up with a front-nine burst and
held on for the victory. He won the second with a birdie, took the sixth with
an eagle and the seventh with a birdie to put Burda in the hole.
Burda cut the deficit to 1-down by winning the 10th
with a par and the 12th with a birdie, but Lutz closed out the match
when he won the 17th with a par.
It will be a battle of past champions in the second round Tuesday
as defending champion Lutz takes on Paul Simson of Raleigh, N.C. Simson rallied
from 2-down with two holes to play to pull out a victory over Mitch Wilson of
Portage, Mich. in 19 holes. Simson won the Senior Amateur title in 2010 and
2012.
Lutz, who won The Seniors Amateur Championship in England
for the third time earlier this summer, was the only member of the local
contingent to survive the opening round of match play at the 7,061-yard, par-71
Old Warson layout.
One of the marquee matchups of the opening round pitted
Merion Golf Club’s Buddy Marucci, the 2008 Senior Amateur champion, against
Patrick Tallent of Vienna, Va., the 2014 champion.
Tallent took control of the match when he won the 10th,
14th and 15th holes with pars to go 3-up. Marucci, the
winning captain of the U.S. Walker team in 2007 and 2009 – the latter at
Merion’s historic East Course – got a hole back when he won the 16th
with a par, but Tallent closed out the match with a halve at the 17th.
Laurel Creek Country Club’s Joe Russo, who finished tied for
second in qualifying, suffered a 4 and 3 loss to Vance Antoniou of North
Barrington, Ill.
Wilmington Country Club’s Randy Mitchell, who was the
medalist in Senior Amateur local qualifier at Cedarbrook Country Club last
month, fell, 4 and 2, to Matthew Sughrue of Arlington, Va.
Scott Mayne, out of Colonial Country Club and Harrisburg,
was ousted with a 3 and 2 loss to Brady Exber of Las Vegas, Nev.
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