The final round of the Indiana PGA Senior Professional Championship at Delaware Country Club started off with Fisher’s Scott Nelson sitting one stroke ahead of Apex Golf Lab’s Quinn Griffing. Nelson held the lead this morning until Griffing snuck up to sit in a tie for first after six holes, followed by him quickly snatching the lead spot over Nelson, pushing him back into second with Mystic Hills GC’s Dave Pugh.
Craig Bowden of KBS Shafts and Gary Robison of Crooked Stick applied some pressure to the leaders today as they battled it out in second for a chunk of the back nine. Griffing stayed steady throughout this battle and sat four strokes ahead of the competition until he encountered some unfortunate bogeys on holes sixteen and eighteen.
“Anytime that you’re in contention, I think the hardest thing is to just stay patient throughout the whole process. Not trying to get in front of yourself and to just commit to what is in front of you. Really just controlling the controllable” said Griffing.
Even after some trouble on the back nine, Griffing was able to pull out the win over Bowden by one stroke to claim the Indiana PGA Senior Pro Championship for the fifth time in his career.
“It’s a great feeling to play good. I played well yesterday and had a solid round today. All I was trying to do was to get each of my nines to be at least 1-under par and I did that on most of them” said Griffing.
Bowden, who was the 2022 defending champion finished out today’s round even, which was enough to secure the runner-up spot.
“Not much worked for me today really. Today was kind of a survival round for me to be honest with you, I struggled for most of the day. I didn’t make any putts and my two bogeys were three-putts. It was a very blah day, nothing too exciting about it” said Bowden.
He added “My goal was to finish in the top five today to get to the National Championship to potentially get another major. I am looking forward to October when we go down. Anyone that gets into the top five is a winner and everyone was fighting hard for those five spots today”.
The other three players who will be advancing to the National Championship in Port St. Lucie, Florida, are Gary Robison of Crooked Stick, Delphi’s James Ousley, who was the only player to finish under par today, and Noblesville’s Mike O’Toole.