With Brewer Cup victories, Frazier and Lutz add to thier glittering senior resumes

 

   I don’t seem to get to the results of a lot of the senior events these days.

   Probably a couple of reasons for that. My main focus is to try to encourage the youngsters to play the game and there certainly seems to be more competitive opportunities for junior golfers than ever before and that’s a good thing.

   The Golf Association of Philadelphia does such a good job covering its senior events on its website, I’m not sure there’s much I can add. But, as a pretty old person myself, I am inspired by the men and women who continue to excel on the golf course in their 60s and beyond.

   Two of my favorite old guys, Jeff Frazier of Carlisle Country Club, and the incomparable Chip Lutz of LedgeRock Golf Club, were the respective winners of the Senior and Super-Senior divisions in the 18^th Brewer Cup, one of GAP’s senior major championships, last week at Lutz’s home course of LedgeRock in Mohnton, Berks County.

   I first crossed paths with Frazier when I looped for him and his buddy, Brent Will, in Stonewall’s Fall Scramble in 2016, my first year of caddying at the ’Wall following an abrupt end to a 38-year career in the newspaper business.

   I had never heard of these guys and Frazier, in particular, didn’t dress the part of a really good golfer, although with a northwest wind howling at 30 mph and occasionally gusting to 40 mph and temperatures in maybe the mid-50s, fashion took a backseat to trying to stay warm that day.

   Frazier and Will were nothing short of brilliant that day. Moving the ball left to right and right to left and hitting driver off the deck, the left-handed Frazier was a revelation. He chipped in for birdie to the impossible back pin at the Old Course’s ninth hole.

   Frazier sent a 10-yard draw to the tough par-3 15^th hole and stuck it two feet from hole. Will chipped in for birdie from behind the green at the tough par-4 16^th hole. It added up to an 8-under 62 in difficult conditions, a score that was met with dropped jaws.

   Pretty sure they won the thing with what seemed like a routine 8-under 62 in much more benign conditions the second day at Stonewall’s North Course.

   Frazier, a Mechanicsburg resident, is 60 now and seems to be relishing in the competition he finds on the GAP circuit.

   Frazier claimed the title in the Senior Division of the Brewer Cup, a match-play event, with a hard-fought 1-up decision over Lancaster Country Club’s Brian Groff July 9^th at LedgeRock.

   The 59-year-old Groff had grabbed a 1-up lead when he drilled an 8-iron at the 190-yard, par-4 10^th hole to five feet and converted the birdie try.

   Frazier battled back, evening the match on the next hole, the 416-yard, par-4 11^th, when he hit a 6-iron from 170 yards away to 18 feet and dropped the birdie putt and then taking a 1-up advantage when Groff three-putted at the 554-yard, par-5 13^th for a bogey.

   It was a spectacular par save for Groff at the 15^th hole after he topped his second shot out of some gnarly rough into a fairway bunker. Groff, however, got it up and down from the fairway bunker, hitting an 8-iron from 153 yards away to 17 feet and then holing the par putt to remain just 1-down.

   Frazier displayed a little short-game magic after his approach into the 409-yard, par-4 17^th hole ended up in the rough right of the green. With the ball below his feet and a bad lie, Frazier flopped it onto the green to four feet and took his 1-up advantage to the final hole.

   Frazier’s wedge from 82 yards away into the green at the 561-yard, par-5 finisher at LedgeRock ended up eight feet from the hole. When Groff couldn’t get his 16-foot birdie putt to fall, Frazier had two putts for the winning par.

   “It requires a competitive person,” Frazier, who played college baseball at Washington & Jefferson, told the GAP website. “I’m as competitive as they come. I do not ever give up. That’s the way I approach everything I do. You don’t ever quit. You don’t ever give in.

   “You don’t understand how much pressure you’re feeling at times, how intense it can get.”

   It was Frazier’s third Brewer Cup victory. The first came in the pandemic year of 2020 at the 6,698-yard, par-72 LedgeRock, a course that obviously fits his game. He added a second at Huntingdon Valley Country Club in 2021. Frazier improved his Brewer Cup match record to 12-2 with his second win at LedgeRock.

   Frazier also has three other GAP senior major wins on his resume, capturing titles in the Frank H. Chapman Cup in 2022 and again last year and a victory in the Francis B. Warner Cup, also last year.

   Frazier has been GAP’s Senior Player of the Year in 2022 and again last year.

   He made a splash on the national stage in the summer of 2022 when he reached the semifinals of the U.S. Senior Amateur Championship at The Kittansett Club on Buzzards Bay in Marion, Mass. before falling to 2013 champion Doug Hanzel.

   Needless to say, I was the least surprised person on the planet that Frazier could hang with the top senior amateur players in the country.

   Earlier in the day of July 9^th, Frazier had avenged a loss in last year’s Brewer Cup quarterfinals when he advanced to the final with a 5 and 3 victory over Neil Gordon of Doylestown Country Club in a semifinal match.

   In the other semifinal match, Groff claimed a 2 and 1 decision over Ed Brown of Rehoboth Beach Country Club.

   A day earlier, Groff took out Tavistock Country Club’s Jamie Slonis, the medalist in qualifying for match play, with a 2-up victory in the quarterfinals.

   Frazier reached the semifinals with a 2 and 1 verdict over Philadelphia Country Club’s P. Chet Walsh.

   Slonis had claimed medalist honors in qualifying for match play July 7^th with a sparkling 4-under 68, two shots better than Overbrook Country Club’s Oscar Mestre, who was the runnerup with a 2-under 70.

   Frazier, Brown, Walsh and David Blichar, out of the Olde Homestead Golf Club, had finished in a tie for third place, each posting a solid 1-under 71.

   Lutz doesn’t need a GAP Super-Senior win to burnish his spectacular senior amateur record. But LedgeRock is a special place for the 70-year-old Reading resident, who helped get the golf course off the ground.

   In GAP circles, certainly in LedgeRock and Reading circles, he is simply Chip. No last name is necessary. When he saw that LedgeRock was going to be hosting the Brewer Cup, he signed up to play.

   Lutz’s mere presence on the list of starters instantly elevated the event.

   And he delivered some drama, capturing the title on the 21^st hole over Greg Osborne, a 71-year-old Lititz resident playing out over Overlook Golf Course.

   Osborne, GAP’s reigning Super-Senior Player of the Year, was 2-down with three holes to play, but wins at the 16^th and 17^th holes drew him even with Lutz and forced extra holes.

   The pair halved the 19^th and 20^th holes and both had birdie looks at the 21^st hole, LedgeRock’s 310-yard, par-4 third, Osborne hitting it to 12 feet and Lutz sticking his approach to six feet.

   Osborne couldn’t get his birdie putt to fall, but Lutz buried his six-footer. As the GAP website pointed out, it gave Lutz GAP wins in every age group: Junior, amateur, mid-amateur, senior and super-senior. He joined Rob McCool as the only player to claim Brewer Cup titles in both the Senior and Super-Senior divisions.

   “Fortunately, I seemed to play fairly steady from a medal point of view,” Lutz told the GAP website. “I managed my game pretty well. This is obviously a very special place to me as I was involved in the formation of the club early on and then (as) the second president. It means a lot to me.”

   Hard to believe it’s been 10 years since Lutz, after years of knocking on the door, finally claimed the U.S. Senior Amateur crown at Hidden Creek Golf Club at the Jersey Shore.

   He had already established himself as one of the top senior amateur players in the world by then, having won the Royal & Ancient’s Senior Amateur Championship in 2011 and 2012 and twice capturing the title in the Canadian Senior Amateur Championship.

   Lutz would add a third R&A Senior Amateur crown in 2016 and was recognized by Global Golf Post, one of the game’s leading digital publications, as its Male Amateur Player of the Year across all the amateur classes around the world, as part of its 2016 All-Amateur teams presentation.

   It wasn’t news to the people who were following the GAP scene as Lutz was in the middle of a remarkable run of being recognized as GAP’s Senior Player of the Year for nine straight years from 2010 to 2018.

   You could argue that Lutz is partially responsible for GAP’s vibrant senior scene. He made it clear that there are plenty of competitive opportunities for players in the their 50s and 60s. In the case of Lutz and several of his contemporaries, the second act of their golf careers has been more successful and rewarding than anything that happened earlier in their golf lives.

   A couple of perennial GAP senior stalwarts fell in the Brewer Cup Super-Senior semifinals as Lutz knocked off Wilmington Country Club’s Steven Walczyk, 3 and 1, and Osborne downed Lehigh Country Club’s Bob Beck, 2 and 1.

   David West, a Philadelphia Public Links Golf Association entry, had claimed medalist honors in qualifying July 7^th with a sparkling 4-under 68. West dropped a 2 and 1 decision to Beck in the quarterfinals the next day.

   Lutz cruised to a 5 and 3 victory over LuLu Country Club’s Christopher Clausen in his quarterfinal match while Osborne reached the semifinals with a 1-up decision over Lancaster Country Club’s Ron Weaver.