Fieger, Lutz move into second round of U.S. Senior Amateur with match wins at Martis Camp

 

   Chris Fieger Sr. of Denver, Lancaster County and Chip Lutz, the legendary senior amateur from Reading, each advanced to the second round of match play in the U.S. Senior Amateur Championship with victories in Monday’s opening round at the Martis Camp Club in Truckee, Calif.

   Fieger pulled out a 1-up victory over Jack Schlotterback of Naples, Fla. by winning the 18^th hole with a par. This is the third time the 60-year-old Fieger, a high school standout at Nether Providence in the early 1980s, has reached the match-play bracket at the U.S. Senior Amateur and the second straight time he’s won his first-round match.

   The 68-year-old Lutz, winner of the 2015 U.S. Senior Amateur at Hidden Creek Country Club at the Jersey Shore, rolled to a 5 and 4 victory over Lee Porter of Pinehurst, N.C.

   Fieger, a three-time winner of the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Senior Amateur Championship, got the jump on Schlotterback by winning the first three holes to grab a 3-up lead. Fieger won the first and second holes with birdies and the third with a par.

   But Schlotterback never backed down, despite facing that early deficit.

   Schlotterback won the fourth hole with an eagle before Fieger answered back by taking the fifth with a par. Schlotterback won the seventh hole with a birdie, but again Fieger restored his 3-up advantage by taking the eighth with a par.

   Schlotterback again fought back, picking up wins at the 13^th and 14^th holes with pars to cut his deficit to 1-down.

   Fieger, playing out of Heidelberg Country Club, regained a 2-up edge by winning the 15^th hole with a par, but Schlotterback finally got the match back to even by winning at 16 and 17 with birdies. Fieger, however, gathered himself and won with par at the last to pull out the victory. Sounds like it was a great match to me.

   Fieger will take on Curtis Holck of Ankeny, Iowa in a second-round match Tuesday morning. Halck advanced to the round of 32 by taking out fellow Iowan Jon Brown of Adel, 1-up.

   Lutz, GAP’s Senior Player of the Year nine straight years from 2010 to 2018, built a 6-up lead before Porter was able to win a hole.

   Lutz, playing out of LedgeRock Golf Club, won the first hole with a par, the third with a birdie and the fifth, seventh, ninth and 11^th holes with pars to take a 6-up lead with seven holes to play.

   Porter delayed the inevitable by winning the 13^th hole with a par, but when 14 was halved with pars, the match was over.

   Lutz’s win sets up an intriguing second-round match Tuesday with Bob Royak of Alpharetta, Ga., the 2019 U.S. Senior Amateur champion at Old Chatham Golf Club in Durham, N.C.

   Royak, who reached the semifinals a year ago at The Kittansett Club in Marion, Mass., advanced to the second round with a 1-up decision over David Levan of Ann Arbor, Mich.

   Pittsburgh’s Rick Stimmel, who captured the Pennsylvania Senior Amateur crown earlier this month at The Club at Nevillewood, suffered a 3 and 2 setback at the hands of Ken Wade of Kennewick, Wash. in the opening round.

   Lancaster Country Club’s John Barry also dropped a 3 and 2 decision in his opening-round match to Matt Sughrue of Arlington, Va., the U.S. Senior Amateur runnerup in 2016. Sughrue was one of four players who finished in a tie for second place in qualifying for match play with a 1-over 145 total.

   Barry began his day Monday by surviving a playoff among 10 players for the final six spots in the match-play bracket. A par on the first hole of the playoff, the par-3 17^th at Martis Camp, earned Barry a ticket into match play.

   Senior “rookie” Todd White of Spartanburg, S.C. was the medalist in qualifying with an even-par 144 total.

   The 55-year-old White survived a tough test from the final survivor of that 10-for-six playoff, Jerry Genthorpe of Ovid, Mich., taking the 18^th hole with a par to advance with a 1-up victory.

   Genthorpe had White, who teamed with western Pennsylvania’s Nathan Smith to win the inaugural U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship in 2015 at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, on the ropes when Genthorpe won the 16^th hole with a par to take a 1-up lead with two holes to play.

   But Genthorpe three-putted for bogey at the 17^th hole to allow White to get even and then White two-putted from 50 fee at the last to win the match. Genthorpe couldn’t get an eight-foot par putt that would have sent the match to extra holes to fall.

   The second round of match play will be getting underway not long after I post this with the winners coming back out for the round of 16 in the afternoon.

   If the weather permits, and it’s been nothing short of perfect in the mountain pass where California meets Nevada near Lake Tahoe, there will only be eighth quarterfinalists still standing by the end of the day Tuesday.