48 / 126
IOWA SENIOR AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP
Ames Golf & Country Club
Jay Gregory (R) congratulates
Gene Elliott on his win a�er
finishing the 18th hole.
Tom Sandie (pictured), of Urbandale,
held off Tim Taylor of Ankeny by
one stroke to win the Super Senior
Division for the second straight year.
47
Elliott leaves no doubt, wins
by six, Sandie repeats as Super
Senior champ
Ames Golf and Country Club has been kind to
Gene Elliott.
The winner of the 2013 Iowa Mid-Amateur at the
venue, won his second Iowa Senior Amateur title
on Wednesday after erasing a three-shot deficit
with a birdie on the first hole of the final round.
Overnight leader, Jay Gregory, unfortunately got
off to a rough start, making double-bogey on the
opening hole and bogey on the next. Gregory
would go on to post 79 in the final round.
“That was a huge twist, right on the first hole,”
Elliott, who closed with 67 (-4), said. “I don’t know
if I have seen a three-shot swing on the first hole
of a tournament. When I knew I wasn’t going to
be fighting from behind, I felt like I could put the
peddle down.”
Elliott, who finished just a shot off the lead in
last year’s event, admitted he likes the way Ames
G&CC is set up. He was able to add five birdies to
his scorecard during the final round to go against
only a lone, three-putt bogey and cruise to a six-
shot victory.
“I have played well here a few times,” Elliott
said. “I like playing here. You have to hit it in the
fairway and the greens are not that easy to hit.
The first six holes (today) I could of been six-under
(par). I had it around the hole all day. I knew I had
a four shot lead with about five to play and tried
to hit the fairway and green from there. I hit, I
think, all 18 greens.”
Finishing runner-up was Ankeny’s Curtis Holck.
Holck was able to make three birdies, but five
bogeys left him too far back of Elliott.
Interesting in itself, Burlington’s Scott Briggs
posted the same score each of the three rounds
(71), including the same nine-hole scores (36-35)
each day. He finished alone in third.
Tom Sandie made it two for two in the Super
Senior Division, as he repeated as champion.
Sandie, of Urbandale, outdistanced Tim Taylor and
Jim Campbell by one shot for the victory.
“I like these greens,” Sandie commented after his
round. Sandie was consistent all week, firing 75-
76-73 to finish at 11-over, 224.