Chris Hall wins Lupton Senior Invitational

OOLTEWAH, Tennessee (May 28, 2017) -- It was another battle of the Halls at the Lupton Senior Invitational. Chris Hall of Marietta, Georgia has known Savannah legend Jack Hall (no relation) since the pair were 10 years old. Jack Hall had the edge heading into the final round of stableford competition, but in the end it was Chris who took the title, putting up 38 stableford points (105 for the tournament) to edge his friend Jack, as well as Adam Kugler, by 2 points. Tournament players made all sorts of jokes when they found out that the winner (Chris Hall) is the arborist working on a tree cleanup effort at The Honors Course -- the most obvious being that he removed any tree blocking his preferred ball flight. But spending time on a property will make you comfortable there, and Hall was coming off a fifth place finish in 2016 so he obviously knows how to play the challenging Pete Dye design. SUPER SENIORS Tennessee amateur golf standout Neil Spitalny won a playoff for the Super-Senior title, after finishing square with Robert Hess at an impressive 102 points. In the playoff, the pair showed the grit and determination of junior golfers, starting on the first hole. Both players hit driver on the tree-lined par-4, and hit the green in regulation. That's when Spitalny -- who tournament director Henrik Simonsen described as "tenacious" -- holed a 45-foot putt to seemingly shock his opponent, who had a 15-foot putt of his own left. When Hess holed out right on top of him, the pair headed for the next hole, a par-5. Both players missed the green in regulation, and chipped to within 6 feet. With Hess further away, he missed a hard breaking left-to-right putt (those are the worst under pressure for a right hander, aren't they?) and left it to his opponent Spitalny, who had now seen the break, to miss or make. Spitalny, a member of nearby Chattanooga Golf and Country Club, cooly holed out for the victory and headed home with a nice piece of hardware.