MAMARONECK, NEW YORK | At the start of the championship match for the 87th John G. Anderson Memorial on Sunday afternoon at Winged Foot Golf Club, the teams from Oakland Hills Country Club outside Detroit and Arcola Country Club were like boxers feeling each other out. Which may explain why they halved every hole on the front nine of the A.W. Tillinghast-designed East Course to begin their rounds.
But then a match in which there was no blood suddenly became awash in it, with the Oakland Hills duo of Jimmy Chestnut and Scott Strickland suddenly going on a birdie bender. Strickland carded a 3 on the par-4 10th and Chestnut made 3 at the par-4 11th before Strickland won the par-5 12th with the team’s third consecutive birdie. And after Chestnut took the par-3 13th with a 3, he finished off their opponents, the defending champions Trevor Randolph and Chris DeJohn, when he birdied 14 for a 5-and-4 victory.
“I don’t know why we suddenly came alive,” said Chestnut, a tall, dark-haired 42-year-old who chuckled and shook his head side-to-side when asked whether he was related to noted New York City trencherman Joey Chestnut, who is to competitive hotdog eating what Tiger Woods is to golf.
“The same thing happened in our first match Saturday,” added Strickland, 41, who has played in the Anderson with Chestnut on two other occasions. “We were down three after 10 and then reeled off birdies on 11, 12, 14 and 17 before winning on the 20th hole. I guess we like that part of the golf course.”
The winners of the Senior Division, Winged Foot members Matthew Meyer and Dave Staudinger, followed a somewhat similar script. Their final match against Patrick Stayer and John Brellinthin of Diamante in Mexico was all-square when they stepped to the 13th tee. But then the locals went on a tear of their own, posting birdies on Nos. 13, 14 and 16 for a 3-and-2 triumph that was very popular with their fellow members.
While this year’s Anderson finished under sunny skies, the weather did wreak havoc. Earlier in the week, the start of the Four-Ball on Thursday morning, for example, was delayed half an hour due to rain. Then, an afternoon downpour led organizers to halt play for another two-and-a-half hours. As a result, a dozen teams were unable to complete their rounds before nightfall. So, they came back to the club early Friday to finish their first 18 holes (on the West Course) and then play their second rounds on the East.
“The last tee time was 3:30 p.m. Friday, and somehow we managed to get the entire field in,” said Anderson Memorial co-chairman J.P. O’Hara.
The hold-up, however, led him and his committee members to reduce the number of competitors from the Championship division making it to match play from 16 to eight.
“We worried that if there was a playoff at the end of the day Friday, we might not be able to get it done,” O’Hara said.
It turned out to be a good move.
“We ended up with eight on the number, which was 5-under, and that meant there was no playoff,” he said. “Had we stayed at 16, we would have had five people in a playoff for two spots. And there might not have been enough daylight to get that done.”
While the rain did soften the fairways at Winged Foot, the greens on the East were their usually slippery selves when the tournament moved to that course for the match-play portion on the weekend. That was largely thanks to the club’s SubAir system, which sucks the moisture out of the putting surface.
The team of Danny Simmerman and Jordan Russell from Oak Hills Country Club in Texas were medalists in the Championship Division, recording a 7-under 133 for the 36-hole qualifier. Alas, they lost in the semifinals to the winning team from Oakland Hills.
In the Senior Division, Doug Hanzel and Bob Royak also shot 133 in the qualifier to earn medalist honors. But they, too, fell in the semis, in their case to Stayer and Brellinthin.
RESULTS
John Steinbreder
California legend Randy Haag ventured east last week and made the most of his first appearance in the National Senior Hall of Fame tournament at High Point (North Carolina) Country Club.
Haag, of Orinda, shot 2-under-par 214 to win the title by three strokes over Chris Hall of Acworth, Georgia on the Willow Creek Course.
“I am pretty pleased to come all this way and get the win,” Haag told GGP as he waited for a plane to his next tournament. “I changed my schedule at the last minute to play here because it is a points-earning event for the Concession Cup team. That’s my goal this year: to play the Concession Cup.”
Haag served notice of his intentions when he eagled the par-5 17th hole in the first round to take the early lead at 69. However, he fell behind by two after posting a second-round 75 as Hall shot 71.
Haag broke out early on Friday morning, making birdies on the first and second holes. He would add five more birdies on the way to a 70. Hall struggled all day, opening with a bogey. His only birdie on the day came on the 17th hole, with the title out of reach.
Haag is a member of the Northern California Golf Hall of Fame who, in his illustrious career, has won everything worth winning in his home state, in some cases more than once. He has won the NCGA’s player of the year or Senior POY honors 10 times while stacking up more than 200 titles in the region. Haag has made an astounding 36 USGA appearances during the past three decades.
It is not unrealistic to think that sometime soon, he will be a National Senior Hall of Fame inductee.
Haag is having a typical Randy Haag-like year thus far. He now has four individual wins, including the Society of Seniors Senior Masters tournament in April, and the San Francisco City Championship Senior title, which he defended in March.
In the Senior Masters, Haag shot his age – 65 – for the first time. “That was pretty neat,” he told GGP.
Mike McCoy, a 2024 Hall of Fame inductee, never got it going, signing for 12-over 228 and a tie for 19th.
Gary Robinson of Fayetteville, North Carolina won the Super Senior division going away, posting 2-over 218 to win by five shots over Todd Brown of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Don Donatoni of West Chester, Pennsylvania claimed the Legends Division, signing for 5-over 221 to come from behind and win by five shots over Jerry Horton of Wilmington, North Carolina.
Jim Nugent