Jim Alexander went to the chalkboard on Sunday and showed his teacher what he’d learned.
Mike Vernon, his caddy for the 36-hole Senior Championship flight final in the 95th annual Bloomington City Golf Tournament at Cascades, just happened to be one of Alexander’s first golf instructors. They saw things get a little dicey down the stretch, but Alexander pulled out his second City title with a 2 and 1 win over four-time champion Gary EuDaly.
Mike’s grandson Logan was knocked out in the Men’s semifinals, freeing him up to spend the day with his former pupil.
“It’s good to have him on the bag,” Alexander said. “He taught me how to play. So I feel like when he’s around, I want to show him how good I can play. Not only that, he can read everything, he gives me some confidence.
“It’s not really showing off, but I want to show him I can hit shots.”
He had two big ones on the 34th and 35th holes to secure the win.
Putter on a string
EuDaly won three holes in a row (13-14-15) to cut his deficit from five to two, showing signs that he had fixed the misfires that plagued him on the second go through the front nine. So even as Alexander was looking to stop the bleeding on 16, he sent his second shot into the bunker right of the green.
“I tried to cut the shot in there and I overcut it,” Alexander said. “But I felt good in the sand, I felt like I could get that to a couple feet, I just had to land it on the fringe and it was close. But when I did miss it, I didn’t feel bad.
The way Alexander’s putter was treating him all day, it was easy to shrug his shoulders and line up his next shot.
“I felt like, OK, I got this, it’s a good shot.” Alexander said. “So I just got up and read it and kept going.”
His sand shot barely made it to the collar of the green, leaving a good 15 feet of putt to tackle. But Alexander curved it in to halve the hole and went to 17 dormie. A strong drive to the front of the green was followed by a long putt from the fringe after Vernon suggested he trade the wedge for the putter.
Either way, Alexander said, he felt good about sticking his shot next to the hole and that’s just what he did, the ball coming to a halt inside of two feet.
“I knew he wouldn’t roll over, so I knew even up whatever, even Mike said, ‘He is not going to give up,'” Alexander said. “I wasn’t panicking. I didn’t hit bad shots. My putting, I felt good today. I told Mike before the round, I feel like I can hit anything.”
Just one bad stretch
EuDaly was after a Senior record fifth win but the hole he dug the second time through the front nine was too much to overcome. They were all even after 18, but wins on Nos. 2 and 3 sent Alexander to a 4-up lead at the turn.
“My third nine was just atrocious,” EuDaly said. “There’s no other way to put it. I was fighting a hook and I just couldn’t keep that ball from hooking. It just put me in spots I couldn’t score from.
“And he played very steady. Didn’t do anything out of the ordinary and I just spent the whole third nine punching out of trees. Then finally, I think I just got so tired, my tempo started coming back. I just started making some good solid strikes.”
Alexander is now the 10th player to grab at least two Senior titles.
“The first 18 we played some really good golf,” Alexander said. “And then I got loose. But I’ve done that before so you just have to grind it and look for other parts of your game.”
Super Seniors
Rory repeats
Like an 800-meter runner, Rory Brown found his finishing kick over the last lap.
Up just one after the first 18, the defending champ quickly went up five by the turn and polished off a 7 and 6 win over first-time finalist Dan Neubecker.
Brown is the first repeat Super Senior champion since Rick Miracle in 2018-19 and is the seventh to win the division more than once. “Bookends,” Brown said smiling as he carried the winner’s trophy to his car.
It’s a nice turn of events for Brown, who had been chasing his first Championship-level title for 44 years before last year’s breakthrough, which he oddly enough won by the same score. Fair to say it’s been a dominant run for the 66-year-old from the gold tees.
“Makes the course a little shorter,” Brown said. “The tees make a difference and I’m still chipping and putting halfway decent.”
Neubecker gave it a good run but just ran out of steam.
“It’s difficult for me to do 36 holes in a day,” he said. “I hadn’t done it for years and I thought, if I get there, I’ll give it a shot. I just kind of lost and Rory played great, too. He got stronger and I got weaker as we went on. “
“I got back trouble and it kind of caught up with me,” Neubecker said. “I’ve been playing so much, the first day I took off in probably two weeks from playing was Friday. But it was fun, I enjoyed it. The better player won today.”
More: All-time City Golf champions
A couple of bogeys by Neubecker and a couple of birdies by Brown built the big lead and a win on 10 helped him end it early.
“Had my caddy Dave Devitt on the bag so that helped me out,” Brown said. “I’m still a little bit in shock.”
BLOOMINGTON CITY GOLF TOURNAMENT
PHIL TALBOT MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP: [1] Jason Bannister d. [2] Jace Day, 4 and 2
PAUL GRAY SENIOR CHAMPIONSHIP: [2] Jim Alexander d. [1] Gary EuDaly, 2 and 1
ROSS RUSH SUPER SENIOR CHAMPIONSHIP: [1] Rory Brown d. [6] Dan Neubecker, 7 and 6
JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP: [1] Ryan Decker d. [3] Ike Wilkie, 9 and 7.
MEN’S REGULAR FLIGHTS
First: [1] Daniel Melwid d. [6] Devin Price-Presslaff, 7 and 6. Second: [3] Brad McLaughlin d. [5] Matt Newman, 5 and 4. Third: [1] Chris Stedman d. [7] Jason Storm, 3 and 2. Fourth: [3] Eli Prather d. [1] Russ Wilkie, 19 holes; Fifth: [2] Wyatt Birch d. [4] Kyle McWhorter, 19 holes.
SENIOR REGULAR FLIGHTS
First: [1] Joe McWhorter, Jr. d. [3] Bruke Geene, conceded
SUPER SENIOR REGULAR FLIGHTS
First: [7] George Finley d. [4] Steve McDonald, 3 and 2. Second: [8] Gary Walters d. [7] Jim Shea, 2 and 1. Third: [4] Mark Deal d. [3] Rand McKamey, 2 up.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Jim Alexander passes test in Seniors Bloomington City Golf final