Brandes wins WSGA Senior Am

Tom Brandes of Bellevue, Wash. shot scores of 68-76-73 in going wire-to-wire to win the 32nd Washington State Senior Men’s Amateur Championship; while Gudmund Lindbjerg of Port Moody, B.C. held on to win the 11th Washington State Super Senior Amateur.

This is the fifth title in this championship for Brandes, having also won four in a row from 2011-2014. He is the reigning WSGA Senior Men’s Player of the Year. For Lindbjerg, this is his third title in the Super Senior, having also won in 2014 and 2016.

Both championships were contested over 54 holes of stroke play, and held concurrently at Port Ludlow (Wash.) Golf Club.

Brandes opened with a 4-under-par 68 in the first round, one of only four rounds under par among the 240 rounds played for the two championships combined on the challenging Port Ludlow layout. (Lance Lundy of Pemberton, B.C. shot a 2-under 70 in the first round; John Molitor of Soap Lake, Wash. shot 2-under 70 in the final round; Mike Jonson shot 1-under 71 in the final round.) Two bad swings cost Brandes early in the second round, when he pulled his tee shots out of bounds on holes two and three, leading to a triple- and double-bogey, respectively, but he played the remaining 15 holes at 1-under par.