SF City Championship: Senior Qualifier and R1 Match Play
Seniors Brave Cold, Wind and Frost in Qualifier and First Match Play
By Lila Hillard
On Wednesday February 15th, in the early morning, 120 senior golfers battled the cold and wind and each other at Harding Park to capture one of the just 30 coveted places in the San Francisco City Golf Championship Senior Division.
Last year’s champion Rob Thompson was the number 1 seed and automatically included in the group, rounding out the field to 31. Herb Jensen shot the low round for the qualifier, posting a 71. Those making the cut 78 or lower.
“The weather was very cold and quite windy”, noted Edrick Pasqual, who ran the tournament.
Moving on to the first round the next morning were the low gross winners who were paired in a match play format. Thompson got a “bye” in this round. The wintry weather hit hard Thursday morning resulting in over an hour frost delay before the action started.
“The course was messy because of the past rain”, mentioned Earl Stewart, two-time winner in the Senior Division of this illustrious event in 2000 and 2004. Fighting a bad cold as well, Stewart held on to go 3-2 to beat his match play opponent, Carl Selkirk.
Merton Goode and Jeff Newkirk battled each other, going to 19 holes, with Newkirk pulling out the win. Herb Jensen moved on to the next round, as well as Francis Spadola and Frank Abbott, both in tight matches.
The 16 remaining players will face off again on Wednesday, February 22nd and the 8 winners of those matches will meet in the quarterfinals on Thursday, February 23. The semi finals will be played on Saturday March 4th, culminating with the final pairing on Sunday morning, March 5th to determine this year’s champion. All these matches will be played at Harding Park and will be open to the public to watch the action.
Click
here to view full results.
ABOUT THE San Francisco City SENIOR
NOTE: 2017 REGISTRATIONS CLOSED ON JAN.
15.
MEN'S SENIOR DIVISION $275
ENTRY
FEE INCLUDES ALL GREEN FEES.
Open
to
the first 72 entries received. Participants must
have
an
index of 9.4 or lower on 12/01/16 and must have
an
age of 55 or older as of March 7, 2017.
Qualifying
will
consist of one 18-hole stroke play round. Along
with
the defending champion, who will hold the
number
two
seed, the low 31 scores will advance to the Men's
Senior Championship Flight. Individual scores will
determine seeding for match play.
Contestants
who don’t qualify will be refunded $125.
No-
shows
will not be entitled to a refund. All rounds will be
played at TPC Harding Park Golf Course. Those
contestants who post the 32nd and 33rd low
scores
will
be deemed alternate #1 and #2, respectively.
ABOUT THE SAN FRANCISCO CITY
CHAMPIONSHIP
The oldest municipal tournament in the
USA.
Match play event with scratch senior,
women's
and open divisions. Past champions
include Ken
Venturi, George Archer, and Dorothy
Delasin.
Some of the 'non winners' include Tom
Watson
and Johnny Miller. Click the 'history' tab for
more about this wonderful event.
View Complete Tournament Information