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Two holes won the Louisiana Golf Association's Senior Amateur Championship for Lafayette's John Davis Saturday, and ironically he played those two holes in one over par.
But he wouldn't throw either one back, because he could easily have double-bogeyed both the 10th and 16th holes at Oakbourne Country Club.
Instead, he survived a couple of near-disasters and claimed the state's top senior crown by a slender one-stroke margin.
Davis, becoming the first player in LGA history to win both the Mid-Amateur (age 25 and over) and Senior Amateur (50 and over) titles in a career, posted a one-over 73 Saturday over the 6,800-yard par-72 Oakbourne layout.
That was good enough for a one-stroke margin over Lafayette's Dennis Smith, who had Saturday's low round, and a two-stroke bulge over second-round leader Eddie Lyons of Shreveport.
<center><p><a href="http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060820/SPORTS/608200363/1006" target="_blank">The rest of the story</a>
Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com
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"To play this course three days and be under par, I'm very happy," said Davis (70-72-73), whose one-over final round still tied for the second-lowest of the day. "It played extremely tough today. It's long for us old guys, and the pin placements were tucked away pretty good."
Davis, who won the state Mid-Amateur title in 2000 at Le Triomphe and 2003 at The Bluffs, entered the final round one stroke back of 2003 Senior Amateur champion Lyons.
He took the lead when he hit a utility club to 25 feet and rolled in the eagle putt on the 498-yard par-five 11th, and parred in from there except for a two-putt bogey on 18 when he had a shot to play with.
But it was shots on the 10th and 16th holes that Davis can credit for the win in his second year of senior eligibility.
Davis drove into the trees on the par-four 10th and had to punch out before hitting over the green and into a catch area near a drain. Facing a double bogey, he chipped within 10 feet and made the bogey putt.
He drove next to a tree to the right on the par-four 16th, but sliced around it to the back fringe and got up and down.
"That was the best golf shot I've hit in a long time," Davis said of his second at 16. "It was close to the path, on the dirt and had to slice it about 15 yards.
"Making the putt at 10 pumped me up, and then to make the putt on 11 ... I was trying just to make birdie and it went in."
A two-putt par on the 17th left him two shots ahead, and allowed him to play conservative on the long par-four 18th.
"All I wanted to do was make sure I made bogey," he said. "It's a tough tee shot for me there."
Smith could have easily been in a playoff, or won the title outright, if not for a balky putter over the final holes. Playing two groups ahead of Davis and Lyons, he missed birdie putts of six feet on the par-four 14th and five feet on the par-four 16th, and after a birdie at 17 he lipped out a 15-footer on the final hole.
"I hit 15 greens every day," said Smith, who had three birdies and two-bogeys in his one-under 71. "I hit the ball well after I got off to a bad start with a bogey. I just needed to make a few more putts."
Lafayette's Robert Shelton, runner-up in both the State Amateur and the Senior Amateur in 2004, could also have figured into a playoff. Shelton, whose second-round 69 vaulted him into contention Friday, was two-under for the day and tied for the lead coming to the 15th hole. However, he bogeyed the par-three 15th and followed with a double-bogey at 16.
"It was a mental lapse," Shelton said, "and it cost me."
Shelton finished at 73 Saturday and at two-over 218 for the tournament, and his finish left Lafayette with three of the tournament's top four finishers. Lafayette's Mark Tolson had a third straight 74 and finished eighth at 222, while fellow locals David T. Duhon and Ben Thibeaux tied for 14th at 226 and David Hebert and Jimmy Thomas tied for 16th at 227.
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