Home cooking tasty for Bingham
Dick Bingham figures the home-course advantage was worth at least a couple of strokes.
His assessment would suggest the 2006 Washington State Golf Association Senior Men’s Amateur, which ended on Wednesday, might have been much more closely contested had it been staged anywhere but Spokane Country Club.
Instead, the three-day event turned into a one-man race, with Bingham breezing to victory on his home track.
The 56-year-old Bingham, playing in his first WSGA Senior Men’s Amateur, shook off some perplexing putting woes – along with a self-imposed penalty and a three-putt bogey over the last three holes – to fashion a final-round 72. His even-par effort gave him a 54-hole total of 5-under-par 211 and left him three shots clear of Colville’s Kent Brown and East Wenatchee’s Lew Mullen, who tied for second at 214.
Jeff Remington, the 2003 champion from Edmonds, finished fourth at 215, followed by Spokane Valley’s Steve Lucas at 217.
“It helps playing on your home course,” admitted Bingham, a Realtor, who has won the club championship at SCC eight times. “The important thing, when you have a big lead, is to not have a really bad hole, and I certainly know where not to hit to stay out of trouble out here.”
Bingham led wire to wire, opening with a sensational round of 6-under 66 on Monday and then playing smart, steady golf the rest of the way. He had a two-stroke lead over Remington heading into the back nine and then seemed to put his game on cruise control after Remington, one of his playing partners, bogeyed the 11th and 13th holes to fall out of contention.
Bingham missed a 2-foot birdie putt on 10 and another 7-footer on 11 or it would have been over much earlier.
“I’ve been kind of yippie with the putter,” he said. “I was that way all three days, but it didn’t hurt me too bad. I hit the ball pretty well and kind of stayed out of trouble. That was the good part.
“But if I could have putted at all, I would have been – at worst – three shots better than I was today.”
Remington, 59, called Bingham’s play final-round effort “flawless.”
“I thought Dick just played fantastic golf,” he said. “He was very steady and made no mistakes. He was not going to be caught.”
Bingham had a four-stroke lead when he stepped to the tee on No. 16, a 543-yard par-5 that plays severely downhill before doglegging sharply to the right. He seemed ready to at least maintain that cushion when his third shot finished just four feet past the pin.
But while addressing his short birdie putt, Bingham saw his ball move, so he imposed a one-stroke penalty on himself, moved the ball back to it original position and then calmly stroked in the putt for a par.