Fairhope’s Robert Nelson cherishes run at U.S. Senior Am

By Tommy Hicks, Alabama Golf News Contributor

He falls in semifinal match to eventual winner

No one can say Fairhope’s Robert Nelson took the easy road to the semifinals of the United States Golf Association’s Senior Amateur tournament at The Honors Course in Ooltewah, Tenn., recently.

Truth be told, there are no easy roads in that tournament, but Nelson’s was especially challenging.

First, he shot a bogey-free round of 3-under-par 67 in a qualifying tournament at Anniston Country Club to finish first in the 41-player field in which only the top two players earned a spot in the Senior Am. Once at the Senior Am, the total field of 165 players compete in two rounds of stroke play competition, with the top 64 advancing to match play

In match play, there’s the Round of 64, Round of 32, Round of 16, quarterfinals, semifinals then championship match.

Nelson, 63, playing in his second Senior Am, qualified as No. 55 out of stroke play and, in order, defeated Ronald Ewing 2&1, defeated Chip Lutz 1 up, defeated Bob Royak 3&1 and defeated Todd White 1 up before falling 1-down in the semifinals to Louis Brown — who last Thursday won the championship with a 4&3 victory over Daniel Sullivan.

Robert Nelson endured ‘boot camp on the golf course’

The path included defeating two former Senior Am champions — Royak, the 2019 champion, and White, the defending champion, as well as the 2024 British Senior Amateur champion — and Lutz, the defending champion who also won the title in 2020, and the 2023 National Super Senior championships.

Lutz defeated Nelson in Nelson’s previous Senior Am appearance in match play in 2021. Brown has previously played on the PGA, Canadian and Australian tours and had his amateur status returned in 2005.

“That might be the understatement of the day,” Nelson said about the gantlet of champions he faced in match play. “When you get three former champions in Lutz, Royak and Brown, and Brown being the No. 1-ranked [senior] amateur in the United States. In my wildest dreams — those guys play a lot of tournaments and I don’t travel that much and play in the bigger stuff like they do. There’s so many good players out there.

“I never thought I’d get as far as I got. On the one hand I’m tickled about what I accomplished, but on the other hand I gave it to the guy who eventually won it. I lost one down to him on a silver platter. I lost just a little bit of focus. My energy gauge wasn’t on empty, but it was below half. I played eight rounds in six days and two rounds each day on Tuesday and Wednesday. A couple of loose swings and a couple of three-putts and there you go. Merry Christmas.”

Against White in the semifinals, Nelson was two down after seven holes but had evened the match on No. 11. He went one down after 12, tied the match at 13, then was one down again after 15. That’s where the score remained through 18.

“We had a good match,” Nelson said. “He’s a great player and a good guy. He ended up winning it all.”

A couple loose swings cost him

In the quarterfinals against defending champion White, Nelson was one down with two holes to play but made a two-putt birdie on the par-5 17th hole to tie the match and then made a par on 18 for the win. Against Brown in the semifinals, Nelson was one down heading to the par-3 15th hole when Brown hit his tee shot in the water. Unfortunately for Nelson, he also put his tee shot in the water and the players halved the hole.

“I was one down and all I had to do was hit it on the green and two-putt,” Nelson said. “Actually, I could have three-putted and won the hole. I just wanted to throw up right there on the tee box. And that was after I hit it in the water on 15 on the previous hole (giving Brown the one-up lead). Those were some of the late, loose swings I had. On the front nine I had my first double bogey of match play and I let him win the hole with a bogey, which, you just can’t do that. I had lapses of focus or concentration that just produced bad shots.”

Still, the three-time Alabama State Senior Amateur champion who attended the PGA Tour Champions Q-School as an amateur in 2010 and 2011 said he won’t forget the experience.

“It’s humbling, very humbling,” Nelson said. “I always knew I could play with the good players, and I’ve had a lot of success in my lifetime. But that golf course was diabolical. Thank goodness a good friend of mine, Walker Grant, caddied for me. He had played in the six previous Lupton Cups up there and he was very familiar with the golf course — lines off the tee, hit a lot of 3-woods and 2-irons and tried to keep the course navigated correctly. Then landing the ball on the green. They had huge green complexes but very undulating greens and they were hard as bricks, some of the firmest greens on a mature course I’ve ever played. … They were 13.1 on the stimpmeter [that measures speed of greens].

“But it was a great experience, an unbelievable experience. I’m just very pleased and humbled that I had the opportunity. One of the hardest parts of getting there is making the qualifier because you only have one or two spots, depending on what location you go to, and that’s not easy. One round? You can’t mess up. Getting through that is hard enough and then making the cut is no piece of cake. Then you have match play and anything can happen. I played well against Chip and Bob and Mike. I played pretty steady.”

Consolation: exemptions into the next two Senior Ams

Nelson said he received a lot of support and well-wishes from friends and others back in Alabama while he was making his way through the tournament bracket.

“The outpouring of love and support was amazing,” Robert Nelson said. “I mean amazing. People I would never expect to hear from, and it took a while to get through them all. The total outpouring and a ton of people following and cheering for me. Wow, it was pretty special.”

He described the tournament as “an endurance test, saying, “You’re in boot camp on the golf course.” He played eight rounds of golf in six days, including two rounds each on Tuesday and Wednesday.

But his success has paid off. Because he reached the semifinals, Nelson secured a two-year exemption in the tournament, and with that a goal to work toward in the coming months and seasons.

“Now it’s going to motivate me,” Robert Nelson said. “One of the beautiful things about where I finished and I’m obviously proud of what I did, is [I get] a two-year exemption. That’s an awesome perk. Next year it’s in Asheville (N.C.) and the following year, I think, it’s at the Baltimore (Md.) Country Club. I don’t have to go through qualifying, which is huge. So I can’t put my clubs up just yet. I’ll get in a little better shape, and I’ll have something to really motivate me going forward to get a lot better.”

Tommy Hicks is a contributor to Alabama Golf News and is a sports writer in Mobile.

A version of this story originally appeared in lagniappemobile.com and was reprinted with permission.