- Joined
- May 8, 2002
- Posts
- 1,192,622
- Reaction score
- 59
The best players among us know that the golf course dictates the strategy. And so, as Paul Simson navigated the Benvenue Country Club in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, this week for the Golfweek Senior National Championship, he took care to hit the greens but stay below the hole as much as possible.
Benvenue, designed by Donald Ross in the early 1920s, features typically penal Ross greens. Simson, a North Carolina Golf Hall of Famer, plays it a few times a year.
“You just have to avoid the big, big error, which is going over the green and missing it left and right by a long way,” he said. “Keep the uphill side in front of you and the downhill side away from you.”
Simson is a legend in senior amateur golf with his two U.S. Senior Amateur titles, three British Senior Amateur titles and one Canadian Senior Amateur title – among many other accolades. He won the Super Senior division at Benvenue by some distance. The Raleigh, North Carolina, resident was 8 over for 54 holes, which was six shots better than a pair of players who finished second.
Simson ran away with the tournament despite a phenomenon that hasn’t occurred in at least the last decade of his competitive career: A four-putt. The blemish came at the par-3 second hole in the final round when Simson was, unbelievably, below the hole.
It was “a shock to my ego,” as he put it, compounded when he missed a birdie putt from about five feet on the next hole.
“Then we got to the fourth hole and I holed about a 40-yard wedge shot for an eagle so that got me back to even and I improved my psyche by quite a bit,” said Simson, 75.
Simson followed with five pars to close out the front nine at even par on his way to a 1-under 73, his best round of the week.
Simson’s victory comes on the heels of a runner-up finish to Doug Hanzel, another former U.S. Senior Amateur champion, at the National Senior Hall of Fame last week. Last month, he won the Durham (North Carolina) Senior/Super Senior and also played at the Huddleston Invitational (T-8) at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas, where he is also a member. Simson will captain the East Team at the prestigious East/West Matches for mid-amateurs and seniors in November.
While he plans to compete in U.S. Senior Amateur qualifying later in the summer, Simson’s competition schedule doesn’t extend too far beyond that. He won’t compete overseas this summer, opting instead to take a four-way father-son golf trip to Scotland in September.
Simson still relishes the competition and the victories. “If it’s not fun to win,” he reasons, “you shouldn’t be playing.”
Entering the Golfweek Senior National Championship, he had been playing well.
“Benvenue is a golf course that is very demanding as far as accuracy,” he said. “I may have gotten a little more conservative than I needed to but I’m pleased with the way my game reacted and I’m pleased with the way I played.
“When you win or you finish high, it’s always a confidence builder.”
At the height of his senior amateur career, Simson was a trailblazer. In fact, Bryan Hoops, winner in the senior division at Benvenue, references him when he talks about where he hopes his career will go in the coming years. The “Simson Slam” is top of mind – in other words, the feat Simson accomplished in 2010 when he won the U.S. Senior Amateur, British Senior Amateur and Canadian Senior Amateur – something that had never before been accomplished. Only three players total (Simson plus Gene Elliott and Chip Lutz) have won all three of those national amateur titles in their careers.
Hoops’s victory at Benvenue was similar to Simson’s in the fact that it was also a runaway. Hoops opened with 75 after a pair of double-bogeys on the back nine ran up his score but he closed with back-to-back rounds of 68 for a 5-under total that was 10 shots better than runner-up Yancey Johnson of Simpsonville, South Carolina.
Hoops is a player whom everyone tends to have an eye on when he tees it up at an event. His game made a statement last spring when he went on a winning streak early in the spring that included the Trans-Mississippi Senior Championship and three senior events in the California desert. Hoops, at 57, understands his time is now.
“I expect just as much as a lot of the other players and officials are letting me know, ‘You’re on paper, you’ve got to win,’ – I understand the pressure and I accept that,” Hoops said. “I just think I need to do what on paper I can do and I should do. There’s no pressure. I just expect to do really well in the next few years – hopefully this year, always earlier the better. It is what it is. There’s no pressure – it’s kind of in front of me. . . . I understand the window, I understand the timeline and the timeframe.”
At Benvenue, Hoops won by playing a different kind of game than he is used to. The challenging Ross greens called for patience in approach shots and putting – that meant clubbing down and paying careful attention to staying below the hole. Was it hard, per say, for a player used to scoring? No. But it did prove to be frustrating at times.
“You want to get rewarded for good shots and when you’re playing well you want to hit good shots,” Hoops said. “In this case, a good shot is actually selecting an incorrect club – which is the correct club – and not trying to get it close. You just have to let time take care of itself.”
Hoops’ strategy paid off, not only leaving him ahead of Johnson in second but also a host of other strong players, including first-round co-leader Kevin VandenBerg and Chad Branton, who tied for fourth at 7-under. Both men are ranked in the top 5 in the Golfweek National Senior Amateur Rankings along with Hoops.
In the two other age groups, Legend and Suger Legend, the winners also built big margins. Terry Tyson of Perrysburg, Ohio, won the Legend division by 12 shots with his 1-over total and Don Donatoni finished 2 over for a 12-shot victory in the Super Legends.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Golfweek Senior National Championship final round scores, highlights
Continue reading...
Benvenue, designed by Donald Ross in the early 1920s, features typically penal Ross greens. Simson, a North Carolina Golf Hall of Famer, plays it a few times a year.
“You just have to avoid the big, big error, which is going over the green and missing it left and right by a long way,” he said. “Keep the uphill side in front of you and the downhill side away from you.”
Simson is a legend in senior amateur golf with his two U.S. Senior Amateur titles, three British Senior Amateur titles and one Canadian Senior Amateur title – among many other accolades. He won the Super Senior division at Benvenue by some distance. The Raleigh, North Carolina, resident was 8 over for 54 holes, which was six shots better than a pair of players who finished second.
Simson ran away with the tournament despite a phenomenon that hasn’t occurred in at least the last decade of his competitive career: A four-putt. The blemish came at the par-3 second hole in the final round when Simson was, unbelievably, below the hole.
It was “a shock to my ego,” as he put it, compounded when he missed a birdie putt from about five feet on the next hole.
“Then we got to the fourth hole and I holed about a 40-yard wedge shot for an eagle so that got me back to even and I improved my psyche by quite a bit,” said Simson, 75.
Simson followed with five pars to close out the front nine at even par on his way to a 1-under 73, his best round of the week.
Simson’s victory comes on the heels of a runner-up finish to Doug Hanzel, another former U.S. Senior Amateur champion, at the National Senior Hall of Fame last week. Last month, he won the Durham (North Carolina) Senior/Super Senior and also played at the Huddleston Invitational (T-8) at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas, where he is also a member. Simson will captain the East Team at the prestigious East/West Matches for mid-amateurs and seniors in November.
While he plans to compete in U.S. Senior Amateur qualifying later in the summer, Simson’s competition schedule doesn’t extend too far beyond that. He won’t compete overseas this summer, opting instead to take a four-way father-son golf trip to Scotland in September.
Simson still relishes the competition and the victories. “If it’s not fun to win,” he reasons, “you shouldn’t be playing.”
Entering the Golfweek Senior National Championship, he had been playing well.
“Benvenue is a golf course that is very demanding as far as accuracy,” he said. “I may have gotten a little more conservative than I needed to but I’m pleased with the way my game reacted and I’m pleased with the way I played.
“When you win or you finish high, it’s always a confidence builder.”
At the height of his senior amateur career, Simson was a trailblazer. In fact, Bryan Hoops, winner in the senior division at Benvenue, references him when he talks about where he hopes his career will go in the coming years. The “Simson Slam” is top of mind – in other words, the feat Simson accomplished in 2010 when he won the U.S. Senior Amateur, British Senior Amateur and Canadian Senior Amateur – something that had never before been accomplished. Only three players total (Simson plus Gene Elliott and Chip Lutz) have won all three of those national amateur titles in their careers.
Hoops’s victory at Benvenue was similar to Simson’s in the fact that it was also a runaway. Hoops opened with 75 after a pair of double-bogeys on the back nine ran up his score but he closed with back-to-back rounds of 68 for a 5-under total that was 10 shots better than runner-up Yancey Johnson of Simpsonville, South Carolina.
Hoops is a player whom everyone tends to have an eye on when he tees it up at an event. His game made a statement last spring when he went on a winning streak early in the spring that included the Trans-Mississippi Senior Championship and three senior events in the California desert. Hoops, at 57, understands his time is now.
“I expect just as much as a lot of the other players and officials are letting me know, ‘You’re on paper, you’ve got to win,’ – I understand the pressure and I accept that,” Hoops said. “I just think I need to do what on paper I can do and I should do. There’s no pressure. I just expect to do really well in the next few years – hopefully this year, always earlier the better. It is what it is. There’s no pressure – it’s kind of in front of me. . . . I understand the window, I understand the timeline and the timeframe.”
At Benvenue, Hoops won by playing a different kind of game than he is used to. The challenging Ross greens called for patience in approach shots and putting – that meant clubbing down and paying careful attention to staying below the hole. Was it hard, per say, for a player used to scoring? No. But it did prove to be frustrating at times.
“You want to get rewarded for good shots and when you’re playing well you want to hit good shots,” Hoops said. “In this case, a good shot is actually selecting an incorrect club – which is the correct club – and not trying to get it close. You just have to let time take care of itself.”
Hoops’ strategy paid off, not only leaving him ahead of Johnson in second but also a host of other strong players, including first-round co-leader Kevin VandenBerg and Chad Branton, who tied for fourth at 7-under. Both men are ranked in the top 5 in the Golfweek National Senior Amateur Rankings along with Hoops.
In the two other age groups, Legend and Suger Legend, the winners also built big margins. Terry Tyson of Perrysburg, Ohio, won the Legend division by 12 shots with his 1-over total and Don Donatoni finished 2 over for a 12-shot victory in the Super Legends.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Golfweek Senior National Championship final round scores, highlights
Continue reading...
