It doesn’t happen very often at a USGA championship that a
player who earns all or a share of medalist honors in qualifying takes it all
the way home.
But Jeff Wilson of Fairfield, Calif. did exactly that in
this week’s U.S. Senior Amateur Championship, carrying the solid play that
earned him co-medalist honors into match play and all the way to the gold
medal.
The 55-year-old Wilson, a perennial contender in USGA events
dating back to his days as a junior in the late 1970s, finally earned that
elusive first title Thursday, defeating defending champion Sean Knapp, the
longtime western Pennsylvania amateur standout, 2 and 1, at Eugene Country Club
in Eugene, Ore.
Wilson became the first medalist or co-medalist to win the
U.S. Senior Amateur crown in 31 years. When he fired a 2-under 70 to catch
first-round leader Greg Condon of Monte Vista, Colo. for a share of medalist
honors at 5-under 139, Wilson became the first player in USGA history to have
been a qualifying medalist in the U.S. Amateur, the U.S. Mid-Amateur and the
U.S. Senior Amateur.
Wilson might stand alone with that distinction for quite
some time.
Wilson, who owns a car dealership, beat the best
Pennsylvania has to offer in capturing the title. He knocked off Reading’s Chip
Lutz, the 2015 U.S. Senior Amateur champion, 2 and 1 in the semifinals before defeating Knapp, who, much like Wilson,
finally ended a USGA drought of his own in winning the U.S. Senior Amateur crown
at The Minikahda Club in Minneapolis a year ago in his 40th USGA
start.
Wilson won the match by taking three straight holes on the
back nine to turn a 1-down deficit into a 2-up advantage.
Wilson had grabbed an early lead by winning the first hole
with a birdie and the fourth with a par. But Knapp battled back by winning the
sixth with a par, the eighth with a birdie and the ninth with a par to take a
1-up advantage to the back nine of the 6,801-yard, par-72 Eugene layout.
Wilson squared the match by winning the 10th hole
with a birdie, but Knapp restored his 1-up advantage by taking the 11th
with a birdie.
That’s when Wilson went off. He nearly reached the par-5 13th
in two and won that hole with a birdie, took
the 14th hole with a par and the 15th with a birdie and
was suddenly 2-up.
It looked like Knapp might cut his deficit in half when his
approach to the par-5 16th left him four feet for birdie. Wilson had
again nearly reached the green in two, but he chose to putt from off the green
rather than chip it and left himself a nine-foot birdie putt. But he got the
putt to fall and the birdie gave him a crucial half. A half at the 17th
hole closed out Knapp.
“I think Sean said it best, it’s really hard to win one of
these things,” Wilson told the USGA website. “First, you’ve got to get over
yourself and then you have to beat the guy playing with you. And it’s
difficult.
“I always thought I was good enough to be a USGA champion,
but I never put the work in. And that shows up when the matches are on the
line. This year, I put the work in.”
Knapp began the month by winning the Pennsylvania Golf
Association’s Senior Amateur title at Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Militia Hill
Course. Then it was off to northern California’s Monterey Peninsula, where he
was probably disappointed with his rounds of 76 at the Pebble Beach Golf Links
and 82 at the Spyglass Hill Golf Course and missed match play in the U.S.
Amateur.
But it was all perfect preparation for his title defense at
Eugene this week. Knapp’s loss to Wilson was his first in U.S. Senior Amateur
competition after 11 straight wins. Just as he had a year ago, Knapp credited
his match-play success to all the experience he gained battling his Pittsburgh
friend and rival Nathan Smith, the four-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion.
Look for Knapp to show up raring to give it another shot a
year from now at the Old Chatham Golf Club in Durham, N.C.
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