Final Round
Dirk Schultz not only won the 17th annual Maryland Senior Open, he exorcised some demons and as he expressed it, “Got sweet revenge.” The event, held October 10-11, was sponsored and conducted by the Maryland State Golf Association.
Three strokes off the pace after the first round at Hillendale Country Club in Phoenix, Md., Schultz, the head professional at Beaver Creek Country Club in Hagerstown, was moving swiftly forward in the second round, while the three players ahead of him were advancing in the opposite direction. At the finish, Schultz won with 72-69-141, and picked up a check for $2,100.
Jim Fitzgerald, head professional at the Chevy Chase Club, was gone by the sixth hole and Ricky Touma, head professional at the Burning Tree Club, and Rick Schuller, from Swaders Sports Park in Prince George, Va., each was one ahead of Schultz at the turn. That lasted as long as it took Schultz, 6-foot-7 and 250 pounds, to cut the corner of the dogleg and finish 51 yards from the green at the 356-yard hole. A pitch-and-putt birdie sent him into the lead for good after the two co-leaders bogeyed the 10th.
Touma finished 69-74–143; Schuller, 70-74–144, and Fitzgerald, 69-77–146, the last good for the Super Senior (60-over) title (and $1,000) in his first year of eligibility.
Joe Lefavor, from the Naval Academy Golf Club, earned low amateur with 73-70–143. Mike Occi, from Hobbit’s Glen Golf Club, earned low super senior amateur with 77-69–146.
As for Schultz, 51, and his demons, one has to go back some 16-17 years. In a six-year span (1999-2004) he finished as a runner-up in the Maryland Open four times, none more gut-wrenching than the first one in 1999 at Hillendale.
In the spring of that year, Beaver Creek, with Schultz and his partner getting 2 1/2 points at Hillendale, had won the Maryland State Team Match crown and Schultz had put on a strong display of power golf. Immediately, he was tabbed a favorite for the Maryland Open.
At the Open, backed by opening rounds of 65-66, Schultz led Mike Mitchell, at the time 19 and a University of Virginia junior from Columbia CC, by five strokes. By the eighth hole, the advantage was gone and Mitchell went on to win by 205 to 208.
Both players birdied the first hole but Mitchell would add to his total while Schultz was slipping back with three bogeys and a double-bogey (two of that collection were 3-putts). The par-4 fourth set the tone. Mitchell plugged his 9-iron approach in a bunker and his blast scooted to the back of the back-to-front sloping green. Facing a 50-foot downhill putt with a 20-foot break, Mitchell was hoping to get out with a bogey. Instead he got out with a par when the ball fell into the cup.
“Totally the putter,” Schultz said at the time. “I had two 6-foot putts for birdies that would have made my whole day. Then he makes that downhill 50-footer and my mind wouldn’t let me catch up.”
Schultz has won a bunch of events and been honored for his play in the intervening years, but that stretch of Opens has haunted him until his Senior Open triumph. “Absolutely, sweet revenge,” he declared.
Round 1
Senior Ricky Touma and Super Senior Jim Fitzgerald each fired a 3-under-par 69 on a cool, sunny fall day to take the first round lead in their respective divisions of the 17th Senior Open championship of the Maryland State Golf Association at Hillendale Country Club, October 10.
The Phoenix (Md.) course was played at 6,397 yards to a par of 36-36–72.
Touma, head professional at the Burning Tree Club, knocked in a 30-foot putt at the seventh green, while his other four birdies (one at the eighth and three on the back nine) were all from inside 10 feet. Two missed-greens led to bogeys and the Virginia Senior Open champion finished by hitting 15 altogether.
Chevy Chase Club head professional Fitzgerald, 60, in his first appearance in the Super Senior division, almost duplicated Touma’s effort, as he had four birdies (20 feet at the first and the others from short of 10 feet). He bogeyed the 17th after a shot that ended under a tree. “I hit it really close [to the flag stick] for the first 12 holes and it turned out to be a solid round. [Even with the cold and the wind], the key was knowing where the ball was going,” he said.
Schuller, from Prince George, Va., the MAPGA Senior Player of the Year, was 1 over on the front and had two two-putt greens among his four birdies on the back. Earlier in the season, he played in the national PGA Championship and Senior PGA championship, making the cut in the latter.
Dirk Schultz, head pro at Beaver Creek CC in Hagerstown, eagled the par-5 eighth with a driver-7-iron to 20 feet. He had started with a double-bogey at the dogleg 10th where he tried (unsuccessfully) to drive the green.
The top four scorers were followed by pros Marty Johnson (nine back-nine pars) and Butch Butler, plus low amateur Joe Lefavor, all at 73, trailed by pros Eric Egloff, the defending champion, and Jim Estes, plus amateur Vance Welch, with 74’s.
The concluding round will be played October 11.
Reported by: John Stewart
