For the third time in his prolific career, Doug Hanzel won the National Senior Amateur Hall of Fame tournament on Saturday at High Point (N.C.) Country Club.
The Savannah, Georgia, resident – a hall of fame inductee back in 2019 – broke free of Bob Royak on the back nine and cruised to a four-stroke victory at 8-under 208 total. Hanzel and Royak were tied with eight holes remaining, but the two stalwarts quickly went in opposite directions.
It started on the par-3 11th when Royak three-putted from 25 feet while Hanzel converted an 8-foot birdie putt. A hole later, Royak pushed his tee shot into the hazard and went on to make a double bogey against Hanzel’s par, creating a four-shot gap.
There was little drama down the stretch, as Royak would fall into a tie for fourth at 1-under 215 as Gene Elliott and Allen Peake shared runner-up honors at 4-under 212. That was a surprise as Royak had opened with a 5-under 67 and remained lockstep with Hanzel throughout most of the 54-hole event.
Hanzel won back-to-back titles at the event in 2016-17. Boasting one of the deepest fields in senior amateur golf, the tournament has carved out a notable place on the calendar.
It’s a sweet victory for Hanzel, 65, going up against a field of younger competition.
“It’s really a very special tournament,” Hanzel told Global Golf Post. “I like to play events where you have good fields, and there's a lot of good players there. It’s a good golf course. The greens are always really good, very fast. You have to pay attention.”
Coming off of a phenomenal year during which Hanzel won five times, this was his first title of 2022. He came into the week as the No. 2-ranked senior amateur in the world.
“I can't say that I’ve really played that bad,” Hanzel said. “I've been close but just made a couple of dumb swings here or there. But yeah, it's nice to play better and finish it off, because most of the other events, I've had one or two decent rounds, but not three. And this one, I had three pretty good rounds.”
Before the tournament, Elliott was honored as this year’s inductee into the Senior Amateur Hall of Fame. His induction comes on the heels of an historic season where Elliott won both the U.S. Senior Amateur and British Senior Amateur. Had he won this week, Elliott would have been the first player since Paul Simson (2012) to win the tournament the same week of his induction.
This was the 38th playing of the National Senior Amateur Hall of Fame tournament, an event that dates back to 1984.
RESULTS
Stewart Hagestad and Mike McBride defended their title in the 85th Anderson Memorial Four-Ball Invitational on Sunday at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York.
A year ago, Hagestad and McBride prevailed in a late-August version of the event that ultimately was shortened to 54 holes of stroke play because of a looming Hurricane Henri. This year, the tournament reverted to its June date – the pandemic had caused the switch in 2021 – and also resumed with its typical marathon match-play format.
Representing nearby Deepdale Golf Club, Hagestad and McBride earned the No. 1 seed after the stroke-play portion of the event and then never trailed a single hole in any of their four matches. The squad had some tough battles, including in the first round in which they defeated the team of Blair Webb and Brett Widner, 2 and 1, but they were in control throughout most of the proceedings.
The final match was the easiest. Hagestad and McBride never lost a hole, winning 5 and 4 over Drew Kittleson and Hoyt McGarity.
In the senior division, Pat Tallent and Dave Scialabba of Indian Creek Country Club won the championship match, 4 and 2, over Trey Freeman and Mark Love.
Carson Bacha holed out for an albatross on the par-5 seventh hole during the final round of the Dogwood Invitational on Saturday at Druid Hills Golf Club in Atlanta, propelling him to five-stroke victory over Wake Forest’s Scotty Kennon.
Bacha, a junior at Auburn, shot a 6-under 66 in the last round to finish at 22-under 266, completing all four of his rounds in the 60s. After holing out on No. 7 with a 6-iron from 187 yards, Bacha pushed his margin to four strokes and never looked back.
It was the first significant amateur win for Bacha, who had his father, Kevin, on the bag. He came into the week ranked No. 444 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, but Bacha registered six top-25 finishes in collegiate events this past semester.
Staff and Wire Reports