Bob Harrington, the 2017 Oregon Senior champion
(OGA photo)
WOODBURN, ORE. (Sept. 8, 2017) – Bob Harrington (Portland, Ore.) won the 34th Oregon Senior Men’s Amateur Championship on Friday, after the event was held Sept. 5-8, 2017 at the OGA Golf Course in Woodburn, Ore.
Friday marked the Championship match in each flight (Championship, Flight I, Flight II). Each final match contained 18-holes of match play.
Harrington had a stellar week, first winning medalist honors during Tuesday’s stroke play qualifying by firing a 4-under par 68 to earn the No. 1 seed in match play. He won his first two matches 5&4, won his quarterfinal match 4&3 against 2017 U.S. Senior Amateur participant Brad Karns (Vancouver, Wash.) and defeated last year’s runner-up, Tom Zupan (Portland, Ore.) 3&2 in the semifinals. Harrington trailed for two holes during the entire week – that occured in Friday’s championship match, where he was 1-down on the second and third holes.
In the Championship match, Harrington played No. 6 seed Tim O’Neal (Vancouver, Wash.). O’Neal is the champion of the 2013 Senior Oregon Open Invitational and helped Royal Oaks Country Club win the OGA Men’s Team Championship in 2014. After O’Neal took a 1-up lead after winning the second hole, the two players went back and forth throughout the round. Harrington was 1-up on the turn, and went into the 16th hole dormie after birdieing the par-4 16th hole. O’Neal, responding to the pressure, made a 20-foot birdie putt to win the 17th hole and birdied the 18th hole to force extra holes.
Both players traded pars on the first playoff hole. The 20th hole, the par-4 second hole, found both players with makeable birdie tries between 15 and 20 feet. After O’Neal missed his opportunity, Harrington sunk his to clinch his first Oregon Senior Men’s Amateur victory.
In the Flight I final, Dan Odiorne (Bend, Ore.) defeated Mike Gustafson (Eugene, Ore.) 5&4. The Flight II final saw Steve Belt (McMinnville, Ore.) defeat Thomas Yates (Happy Valley, Ore.) 5&4.
View results for Oregon Senior Amateur
ABOUT THE Oregon Senior Amateur
Entries are open to male and female amateur
golfers 50 years of age or older with USGA
Handicap Indexes of 18.1 or less and who are
members in
good
standing of an OGA member club. The field will be
limited to the lowest 96 qualified men. The
defending
champion and 31 finishers from the 18-hole stroke
play qualifier will advance to the single elimination
Championship flight match play portion of the
competition, with the remaining entrants placed in
single elimination match play flights according to
score. There will be NO age bracket flights.
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