Brandes falls in U.S. Senior final

Chip Lutz, of Reading, Pa., defeated Tom Brandes, of Bellevue, Wash., 5 and 3, to win the 2015 U.S. Senior Amateur Championship, held at the 6,864-yard, par-71 Hidden Creek Golf Club.

Lutz, 60, who made it to the U.S. Senior Amateur semifinal round in 2010, 2011 and 2013, took home his first United States Golf Association victory and earned custody of the Frederick L. Dold Trophy for one year.

With his 89-year-old mother, Janet, watching him play for the first time, Lutz took an immediate lead with a par on the par-4 first hole, when Brandes drove it left and was forced to take an unplayable lie. Lutz went 2 up with a par on the par-3 fourth hole, but Brandes won the fifth – his only win of the day – with a 12-foot birdie putt. “The putts on 9 and 10, if one of those would have gone that would have changed the whole thing,” said Brandes, a Pacific Northwest Golf Association Hall of Fame member and runner-up in the 2013 Seniors Amateur Championship, conducted by The R&A. “Those were very, very doable.”