Links: Results
June 2nd, 2015 – The Golf Club at Oxford Greens in Oxford, Conn. welcomed the state’s top senior amateur golfers for the 9th Senior Match Play Championship. A total of one hundred-ten golfers began the day vying for one of sixteen qualifying spots, with successful qualifiers advancing to the match play portion of the championship. Dave Szewczul of Tunxis Plantation Country Club, the two-time defending champion and reigning CSGA Senior Player of the Year, fired a round of one over-par 73 to claim medalist honors and the number one overall seed.
Conducted by the Connecticut State Golf Association, the Senior Match Play Championship is open to Connecticut senior golfers who are fifty five years of age and over. The tournament challenges competitors with a round of stroke play to determine the low sixteen match play qualifiers. Following the qualifying round, four rounds of match play are conducted over consecutive days, culminating in an eighteen-hole final match on Thursday, June 4th.
Nearly five inches of rain fell in Oxford, Connecticut since Sunday night, resulting in the postponement of the tournament to begin Tuesday, rather than the original date of Monday. Cold and wet conditions greeted the players as they made their way around the challenging 6,326 yard, par-72 layout, which was designed by architect Mark Mungeam and opened for play in 2005. Known for his remarkable consistency, Szewczul handled the difficult scoring conditions with ease; recording four bogies matched with three birdies, and was never more than one over-par at any point in his round.
“Overall, I played solid today and I’m pleased how I played,” said Szewczul. “I’m happy with the score, but I feel like I played better than I scored. I only missed one fairway and three greens today, and missed a few makeable putts. I’m more of a control and finesse player, so I feel like the course sets up pretty well for my game and hopefully I can take that momentum into tomorrow morning.”
Szewczul is no stranger to entering the Senior Match Play as the #1 seed, as he claimed medalist honors the past two years en-route to a pair of victories. Szewczul will begin his quest to capture his fifth Senior Match Play title when he faces David Blovish of Ellington Ridge CC, the final player to advance.
“It would be a thrill to win my fifth title, but what’s happened in the past really doesn’t make any difference to me,” said Szewczul. “It’s a new tournament, a new chapter, and a whole new ball game, so I’m going to try to go into tomorrow with the same mindset as I did in previous years – focus on hitting fairways and greens and see how my game shapes up in match play.”
Szewczul will begin tomorrow searching to make history as only the third player in history that has won the same CSGA amateur championship five or more times. With a win, Szewczul would match Bill Hermanson’s five Connecticut Mid-Amateur titles (1988-91 and 2001) and Dick Siderowf’s five Connecticut Amateur titles (1955, 60, 65, 84 and 85).
Four players finished in a tie for second place three shots behind Szewczul at four over-par 76. Bill Hermanson of Black Hall Club, Frank Geiger of H.S. Richardson GC, Mark Vasington of Wampanoag CC and Tom Yellin of Stanwich Country Club claimed the two, three, four and five seeds, respectively. A nineperson playoff was needed to determine the final two seeds of match play, with Jack Bracken of Hartford Golf Club and David Blovish of Ellington Ridge CC successfully advancing.
Getting off to a good start will prove vital for the 16 remaining competitors looking to etch their name on the Senior Match Play trophy. In the qualifying round, Holes # 1 through 5 played as five of the seven most difficult holes on the course, with the par-5 3rd hole being the most difficult of the day. Appropriately named “Scoundrel”, the hole measures 535 yards and plays up a steep incline, making the effective yardage more like 580 yards. From the back tee, the hole measures 630 yards, the longest of any hole in Connecticut. Combined, the first five holes yielded just nine total birdies and played a combined 4.18 shots over par.
The match play portion of the Senior Match Play Championship begins tomorrow, June 3rd, with the Round of 16 beginning at 7:30 a.m., followed by the quarterfinals in the afternoon. The tournament will conclude Thursday, June 4th, with the semifinal and final matches. For more information and Live Scoring, visit CTSrMatchPlay.com.
