{{ubiquityData.prevArticle.description}}
{{ubiquityData.nextArticle.description}}
John Derrick of Waco, Texas, shot 3-under 213 to win by three strokes Thursday in the Society of Seniors Masters at Indian Wells Golf Resort in California.
Derrick, who won the Texas Senior Amateur last year and the Sunnehanna Senior Amateur in 2019, started the final round with a two-stroke lead ahead of Jonathan Valuck and Greg Sanders. The lead was short-lived as Derrick bogeyed his first two holes, but he came back with birdies at Nos. 5, 7, 9 and 11 to take firm control of the tournament.
“I’ve won a couple of big tournaments the past few years, but I felt like this was a big stage for me and I was really nervous,” Derrick told Global Golf Post. “I hit it over the first and second greens and made bogey and I was thinking, ‘Golly, this is going to be tough.’ But I calmed down and had seven greens in a row where I one-putted.”
Despite making four bogeys on his last seven holes and shooting 1-over 73, Derrick didn’t have much drama down the stretch. Valuck started 3 over for his first 11 holes on his way to a 2-over 74 that placed him in a tie for second, while Sanders shot a 4 over 76 and finished fifth. Randy Haag closed with 2-under 70 to share second place with Valuck and Rusty Strawn, whose 3-under 69 was the best score of the final day.
Derrick, 56, is an eight-time club champion at Ridgewood Country Club in his hometown of Waco – he estimates he’s played the course more than 2,000 times since becoming a member in 1996. He played college golf at McLennan Community College and Baylor University.
Emerging as a strong player in the senior amateur golf scene, Derrick says he has a bucket list that includes contending at a U.S. Senior Amateur, making a U.S. Senior Open and playing in the British Senior Amateur.
The duo of John Hunter and Brad Segreto shot 21-under 263 to take home the 53rd Champions Cup Invitational by one stroke on Sunday at Champions Golf Club in Houston.
Hunter and Segreto, both from Houston, had teamed to win the Champions Cup in 2016 by four strokes during a dominant performance in the four-ball tournament. They appeared destined to repeat that runaway victory this year after taking a four-stroke lead through three rounds, but a 1-under 71 in the finale brought the field within striking range. Brad Nuski and Alan Coshatt shot a 7-under 64 to claim second place at 20 under, while Derek Meinhart and Kyle Maxwell finished in third place at 19 under.
“It got a lot closer than we wanted,” Hunter said. “We just took the mentality of trying to protect par where we could to preserve the lead. If someone was going to beat us, they were going to have to shoot a 62 or something close to that.”
The Champions Cup dates to 1961 when Jackie Burke Jr., a Masters and PGA Championship winner, and Jimmy Demaret, a three-time Masters winner, decided to create a four-ball event that would come to only include mid-amateurs. Last year’s event was cancelled due to COVID-19.
“Our first win in 2016 was on the Jackrabbit course and now winning on Cypress, we may be the only team to ever win it on both,” Segreto said. “We really wanted to win it on the big course.”
Sean Fairholm