Florida State Senior Amateur comes to Bradenton Country Club

This time last year, Peter Wegmann wasn’t confident.

One trip around Ocala’s Adena Golf and Country Club did enough to temper Wegmann’s expectations ahead of the Florida State Golf Association’s Senior Amateur Championship in 2016.

“I called my wife and said, ‘I’ll probably play two rounds and come home,’” said Wegmann, a Fort Lauderdale resident. “Because I thought the course was just brutal.”

Wegmann, though, didn’t give into that feeling.

Instead, he strung together a solid tournament en route to winning the championship. It was his first title in eight years playing FSGA events. And later in the summer, he completed the senior double with the State Senior Amateur Match Play title at Sarasota’s Founders Club.

Now Wegmann is back to defend his senior amateur crown when the FSGA major championship begins Tuesday at Bradenton Country Club.

The Donald Ross-designed track is set to play as a par-71 at 6,500 yards.

“They wanted a green speed of about an 11 to an 11 1/2, so that’s the only real requirement they asked other than our normal maintenance,” said Bradenton Country Club head pro Brian Lake about the FSGA selecting them as the venue.

Also helping Bradenton Country Club’s case to be a host for one of the FSGA’s marquee tournaments was it’s more recent history of holding the U.S. Women’s Open sectional qualifier.

Bradenton Country Club hosted that sectional qualifier the last two years, and is scheduled to be this year’s venue in June.

Plus, it was Southwest Florida’s turn to host the senior amateur.

So FSGA officials approached BCC officials, and then the BCC board of directors decided they wanted to have the tournament.

That happened about a year ago.

Fast-forward to now, and the course is primed for a championship with a stout layout that relies on its greens as the best defense, much like most Ross-designed courses.

“Our greens are more like quadrants,” Lake said. “So the flag could be in the center of the green, and the spot might be to the left of the flag to be uphill. You might be short or long and have a tough sidehiller. So it’s really knowing where the flag is, and knowing the slopes of the greens. ... Our (greens) undulate two or three different directions on each green.”

Spectators are welcomed at the tournament and can either walk or rent a cart, if available. Fans following groups by walking must do so from the rough or cart paths with a 25-yard distance between them and the players. Those that can rent a cart must stay on the path at all times. Cell phones should be kept on silent at all times on the course.

And any fans that do come to Bradenton Country Club for the 54-hole tourney will see eight former champions and five former senior players of the year tee it up.

“You’ve got some of the best senior amateur golfers in the state and several in the country,” FSGA senior tournament director Darin Green said.

There’s also a local flavor to the tournament with Bradenton’s George DeSear, Eddie Bass, Mark Henderson Donald Ragley and Jim Stone playing. Parrish’s Michael Schmid and Lakewood Ranch’s Craig DelFabro and Tom Grady round out Manatee County golfers in the field.

DeSear has a built-in advantage as a Bradenton native that grew up playing Bradenton Country Club. He’s worked with Lake in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s first round.

And Lake said DeSear is a plus-four handicap. That means he’s a better-than-par golfer.

“He’s a player,” Lake said.

But for DeSear or anyone to thrive this week, they’ll need to putt lights out. That means knocking approach shots into the correct quadrants of the greens.

There’s also some key holes that Lake figures can separate players from the field.

Lake said the par-4 fifth and the par-3 18th are some key holes.

The action begins at 8 a.m. on Tuesday.

This story was originally published April 10, 2017 at 6:46 PM with the headline "Florida State Senior Amateur comes to Bradenton Country Club."