Gap's Chip Lutz Wins U.S. Senior Amateur At Hidden Creek C.C.

Chip Lutz, who is closing in on his sixth Golf Association of Philadelphia Player of the Year Award, finally got it done.

Lutz defeated Tom Brandes of Bellevue, Wash., 5 and 3, on Thursday, Oct. 1, to win the U.S. Men’s Senior Amateur Championship at Hidden Creek Country Club in Egg Harbor Township. Lutz had played in three others semifinals of the event before reaching the final on Wednesday.

In the semifinals, the 60-year-old Lutz, from Reading, Pennsylvania, beat two-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion Tim Jackson of Germantown, Tennessee, 1 up, and the 59-year-old Brandes, from Bellevue, Washington, topped former PGA Tour player Steven Liebler of Irmo, South Carolina, with a birdie on the 21st hole.

Lutz reached the final for the first time after dropping out in the semifinals in 2010, 2011 and 2013. He swept the Canadian Senior Amateur and Senior British Amateur titles in 2011 and 2012.

"I knew what I had to do to try to get over those three semifinal losses, and that was significant trying to get by that," Lutz said. "You know, just hung in there, tried to stay calm and breathe and try to play my game and stay in the moment."

Tom Hyland of Little Mill won in the Round of 64 before being eliminated. His son, Michael Hyland, the 2015 NJSGA Mid-Amateur champion, was on his bag.