ESTERO, Fla. - Ron Carter won the Old Corkscrew Senior Championship’s senior division with a par on the third hole of a playoff with fellow Indiana player Sam Till Jr. Both finished at 229 after 54 holes. Michigan’s Bill Zylstra was third at 231.

Ted Smith, another Indiana resident, was the super senior champion with a three-round total of 234. Fred Silver, and another Hoosier Jerry Caplinger, tied for second at 238.

Unseasonably cold weather (temperatures dropped into the high 30s) and wind gusts of up to 30 mph caused the scores to soar at the Jack Nicklaus Signature course.

Ron Carter of Monticello, Ind., fired a final-round, 2-under 70 to win the 15th annual the Dixie Amateur Seniors Division tournament, clearing Bob Stephens of Indianapolis, Ind., by one stroke at the Heron Bay Golf Club in Coral Springs, Fla.

Carter replaces Rick Woulfe as the tournament champ, after Woulfe won the Dixie Seniors the last three years and six times since 2000. Woulfe finished fourth, three shots behind Carter.

Dick Anderson of Bluffton, S.C., was third, two shots off the pace.

Carter, 61, has won both the Society of Seniors Championship in 2010 and also won the Senior Porter Cup in September 2011. He did not make a bogey during the final round and made 10 birdies over the three-day tournament.

"I had three or four putts today that just stopped a revolution or two short of the hole," said Carter, who is an insurance agent. "I don't think I missed a fairway all day and only one green - at 18."

In the Super Seniors division - those 65 and older - Pat Vincelli of Minnesota won by three strokes. Vincelli was the only player to break par, following an opening-round 78 with rounds of 69-70.

Vincelli had an ...

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OOLTEWAH, Tenn. – First-time USGA Senior Women’s Amateur participant Terri Frohnmayer might have had a positive omen early in the week at The Honors Course.

Frohnmayer went to dinner with her local caddie and some of his friends, who own a company that makes scratch-and-sniff products.

“They make the fragrances,” Frohnmayer said. “And on the second day he made a fragrance for me – lavender and French vanilla – and he called it ‘Victory.’ And I have a little patch that says Victory, and I haven’t yet scratched and sniffed it yet.”

On Sept. 15, Frohnmayer scored a 2-and-1 triumph over defending champion Mina Hardin to capture the national championship.

Now, how does it smell?

“It smells damn good,” she said.

Frohnmayer, 55, of Salem, Ore., joins four other Oregonians as national champions: Mary Budke (1972 U.S. Women’s Amateur), Jason Allred (1997 U.S. Junior), Jeff Quinney (2000 U.S. Amateur) and Peter Jacobsen (2004 U.S. Senior Open).

Hardin, 51, who won the title last year in her first year of eligibility (50 and older), is a member of the Ladies Amateur Golf Association in the Dallas area that has produced three winners (and four runners-up) of this ...

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MANAKIN-SABOT, Va. – The final of the USGA Senior Amateur, won by Louis Lee of Heber Springs, Ark., with a 1-up victory over Phil Pleat of Nashua, N.H., was a tribute to match play.

It was a testimonial to the emotion of golf. It was high praise for the human element of the game we love.

Golf needs more championships such as this. It needs different types of competition. It needs more tournaments with dramatic highs and lows. The Senior Amateur, because of its match-play format, provided six days of heart-pounding action for both players and fans.

“I am absolutely exhausted,” Lee said Thursday after winning. “The tournament’s been over for half an hour, and my hand is still shaking.”

That hand didn’t shake, though, when it mattered most. Facing a downhill, sidehill 4-foot par putt on the 18th green, it was do or die for Lee – make the putt and win the match, miss the putt and go to extra holes.

Lee sank the putt, the ball just catching the left side of the cup.

“It was digging for the left tip,” Lee said. “I really wanted that putt to go in. I did not want to ...

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MANAKIN-SABOT, Va. – And you thought the golf capital of the United States was Pebble Beach or Pinehurst or San Diego.

Not a chance, at least not on Wednesday.

In what amounted to a piece of golf history, brothers Stan Lee and Louis Lee played each other Wednesday in a ballyhooed quarterfinal match in the USGA Senior Amateur Championship.

“Just wait and see,” predicted Jay Fox, executive director of the Arkansas State Golf Association. “The match will be all square going to the 18th hole. It wouldn’t surprise me to see it go into extra holes.”

Bingo! Louis Lee won the brother-brother contest on the 19th hole, sinking a 22-foot birdie putt.

Oh yes -- the Lee brothers are from Heber Springs, Ark., which by proclamation could be called the temporary golf capital of our country.

Heber Springs claims only about 6,500 residents, yet it boasts four golf courses. Two are 18-hole facilities, and two are 9-hole layouts. The Lee brothers play at Red Apple Inn & Country Club.

“All I can say,” quipped a Senior Amateur official who didn’t want to be identified, “is that we had one player from New York City (George Zahringer) and two from Heber ...

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MANAKIN-SABOT, Va. - Talk about pressure.

At the USGA Senior Amateur, nine golfers returned to the golf course Monday morning for a playoff to determine the final eight spots in match play.

All nine had finished the 36-hole qualifier on Sunday with scores of 7-over 151 for two rounds at Kinloch Golf Club.

The playoff started and ended on the 403-yard 10th hole. Amazingly, just two of the nine golfers made par. Six made bogey.

That left Ken Larney of Orland Park, Ill., as the loser. Larney stumbled with a double-bogey six on the hole.

Ironically, Larner hit the best tee shot among all nine players. He was in the middle of the fairway, about 140 yards from the green, although he hit a fat second shot that flew into a creek short of the green.

That left several other players scrambling for bogey.

Among them was 71-year-old Mike Rice of Houston, Texas, the 2005 Senior Amateur champion. Rice hit his second shot to the front of the green before banging a 50-foot putt that catapulted past the hole, rolled down a slope and ended up 25 feet away. He drilled his next putt almost three feet beyond the hole, but ...

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Sometimes, the deeds of our golf heroes go far beyond the game.

Ken Eichele has played in two U.S. Golf Association national championships. For decades, he was one of the finest public-course players in New York.

Yet Eichele will long be known as the face of golf in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy. It’s a distinction that has everything to do with his determination to aid others and little to do with his golf ability.

Though he sought no recognition, Eichele, at the time a New York City firefighter, became golf’s most visible representative in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon.

Eichele frequently has been quoted as calling himself “the most overexposed average guy you’ll ever meet,” but it is likely he will never again be an average anything. His life was changed forever by that infamous day.

Now 60 and retired in Pinehurst, N.C., Eichele is a frequent competitor in national points events on the senior amateur circuit. There is a scene that repeats itself at these tournaments and at the Pinehurst Resort, where he regularly plays golf.

“Somebody will come up to me ...

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MANAKIN-SABOT, Va. — Mark Bemowski shot a 4-under 68 on Saturday to take a two-shot lead after the first round of stroke-play qualifying in the USGA Senior Amateur Championship at Kinloch Golf Club.

Bemowski, 65, from Mukwonago, Wis., won the event in 2004. He's trying to match Paul Simson's 2010 feat of winning the USGA Senior Amateur, Canadian Men's Senior Championship and British Seniors Open Amateur in the same year.

Paul Murphy, 60, of Arlington, Mass.; Rick Woulfe, 61, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Chip Lutz, 56, of Reading, Pa.; and Raymond Thompson, 59, of Drexel Hill, Pa., were tied for second. Simson, 60, of Raleigh, N.C., shot 71.

The top 64 after the second round Sunday will advance to match play.

OOLTEWAH, Tenn. — Lisa Schlesinger topped the USGA Senior Women's Amateur leaderboard at 5 under with two holes left when play was suspended because of darkness Saturday in the first round of stroke-play qualifying.

The 53-year-old Schlesinger is from Laytonsville, Md.

Mary Ann Hayward was the leader in the clubhouse after a 2-under 70 on the Honors Course. The 51-year-old Canadian is coming off a victory two weeks ago in the Canadian Senior Women's Amateur.

The top 64 after the second round Sunday will advance to match play.

In 1988, Kathy Mankowski was a low-handicap golfer looking for a golf game.

She had moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area two years earlier and joined a golf club, but there remained one big unanswered question: Where were all the competitive women golfers?

“I had trouble finding women of my ability to play with,” Mankowski said. “So I played mostly with the men. Finally I proposed that we start some kind of group of low-handicap women. I went around to different courses and asked if they would be willing to host us. We started out with four women, and it grew from there.”

Four women became several dozen. Today, there are 84 women participating in Mankowski’s brainchild, the Ladies Amateur Golf Association.

Six times in the past seven years, a member of LAGA has reached the final of the USGA Senior Women’s Amateur. That’s three victories and three runners-up from one metropolitan area.

“For a group of women in one small area of the country, I think this is a stunning achievement,” said Carolyn Creekmore, one of the most accomplished of the LAGA members. “We are very, very proud of what we’ve been able to do ...

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Chip Lutz won the British Seniors Open Amateur at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland on Friday, holding off Arthur Pierse and Frank Ford III.

Lutz, 59, finished at 2-under 214, and was one shot ahead of Pierse, an Irishman who won this championship in 2007. Lutz was runner-up last year to American Paul Simson, and Pierse won in 2007.

“It’s just so emotional, I’m overwhelmed to have won,” Lutz said. “This is my first national championship and it feels great to have been able to finish it off after being runner-up to Paul (Simson) at Walton Heath last year.”

Lutz is Golfweek’s No. 3-ranked senior.

HOUSTON, Texas – Get this: An 80-year-old man, playing in his biggest tournament of the year, closed with a 4-under-par 67 on a one-time U.S. Open course. Not only did he break his age by 13 shots over the Cypress Creek course at Champions Golf Club, but he posted a 54-hole total of 217, 4-over par, and won his age division by 11 strokes.

The John Kline Super Senior Championship, conducted by the Society of Seniors, is arguably the most important tournament of the year for amateurs 65 and older. Don Addington, who turned 80 in February and lives in Dallas, Texas, decided he would bypass the 80-and-over division and play in the more competitive 75-79 division.

Good move. In the end, only one player in the entire field had a lower total than Addington. That was 65-year-old Ted Smith of Wilkinson, Ind., who finished at 212 and won the overall title by five.

Another 65-year-old, Jim Hays of Prosper, Texas, tied Addington at 217.

“Just kids,” Addington joked about the two golfers who were 15 years younger.

“What an exceptional round,” said Jim Popa, executive director of the Ohio Golf Association and the official in charge of the Super ...

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Each year, Golfweek honors amateur golfers who have amassed impressive records on the state and local scene. These ‘Local Legends’ have been highlighted in our annual Amateur Issue.

Here is a list of past honorees:

2011

• David Ragaini, Florida
• Lee Davis, California
• Johnny Owens, Kentucky
• Jon Brown, Iowa
• Fred Silver, New York
• Pat Coatney, Oklahoma
• Pat O’Sullivan Lucey, Connecticut

2010

• Kevin Carey, Massachusetts
• Claudia Pilot, Minnesota
• James English, Colorado
• Mike Dritz, New York
• Doug Jones, Texas
• Edean Ihlanfeldt, Washington
• John Guenther Jr., Pennsylvania

2009

• Rev. William (Bill) Lee, Connecticut
• Doug Roxburgh, Canada
• Evelyn Griggs, New Mexico
• Glenn Johnson, Michigan
• Martin West III, Maryland
• Ronnie Tumlin, Florida

2008

• Jim Mahoney, Georgia
• Ella Gates, California
• Casey Boyns, California
• Syd Wells, Michigan
• Don Allen, New York
• Pete Green, Michigan
• Jack Waldock, Florida
• Charlie Green, Scotland

2007

• Rheba Mabie, Wisconsin
• Tom Studer, Illinois
• Bob Niger, California
• Thuhashini Selvaratnam, Arizona
• Jim Volpenhein, Kentucky
• Kent Myers, Oregon
• John (Chip) Lutz, Pennsylvania

2006

• Bud Chapman, Minnesota
• George Walker, Oregon
• Jack Hesler, Ohio
• Frank Vana Jr., Massachusetts
• Laura Coble, Georgia
• Ryan Jansa, South Dakota

2005

• Steve Earsley, Texas
• Bob Hullendar, Texas
• Tim Miller, Indiana
• Barb Berkmeyer, Missouri
• Pam Brown, Pennsylvania
• Marcia Fisher, Oregon

2004

• Ike Martin, Indianapolis ...

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Seminole member Mike McCoy closed with a final-round 70 on Saturday to win the mid-amateur division of the George L. Coleman Amateur Invitational at Seminole Country Club in Juno Beach, Fla.

McCoy, of West Des Moines, Iowa, finished four shots ahead of Tim Jackson, who closed in 75. McCoy, the medalist at the 2009 U.S. Mid-Amateur, finished at 2-under 214, the only player in the field to break par over 54 holes.

Chip Lutz, of Reading, Pa., defeated Rick Woulfe, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in a three-hole aggregate playoff to win the senior division. Lutz was the only player in either division to break 70 in the final round, closing in 68 to finish at 222.

Lutz was a semifinalist at last year’s U.S. Senior Amateur and he was the winner of the Florida Senior Azalea Amateur in March.

Bill Zylstra, Golfweek’s top-ranked senior player, tied for third after a final-round 75, while Paul Simson, winner of last year’s U.S., British and Canadian Senior Amateurs, finished tied for fifth at 225.

Despite following an opening-round 7-under 65 with a 3-over 75 on Friday, John Engler remains in the lead at the George Coleman Amateur Invitational. Engler, of Augusta, Ga., is at 4-under 140 for the tournament, hosted by Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Fla.

Engler leads Tim Jackson, who contended at the 2009 U.S. Senior Open, by three shots. Jackson shot 4-under 68 Friday for the lowest round of the day, and is at 1-under 143 for the tournament. Mike McCoy, the 2009 U.S. Mid-Amateur medalist, is another shot back in third.

In the senior division, Paul Simson put up a second-round 71 for a two-shot lead. Simson, of Raleigh, N.C., is at 2-over 146 for the tournament. Bill Zylstra, Golfweek’s top-ranked senior, trails by three shots.