Field set for Match Play

At last glance, Paul Kane was still grimacing about the one shot that wiped out his chance to contend for the Jefferson Cup golf title at Birdwood on Sunday.
The 50-year-old Farmington member pulled his drive on the par-4, 11th hole, onto the side of a creek bed that led to a quadruple bogey 8 and essentially erased his shot at first place.
One of the good things about golf is there’s always another tournament and Kane takes the No. 1 seed for this weekend’s Third Annual Central Virginia Match Play Championships at Spring Creek Golf Club.
The 16 golfers will go head-to-head in match play competition on Saturday morning with the eight winners advancing to the quarterfinals that afternoon. Semifinals and finals will be held on Sunday.
Kane, who finished third in the Battle Trophy standings, was awarded the top seed in the match play championship due to a schedule conflict with Battle champion Weston Eklund and runner-up Mikey Moyer’s commitment to play in the VSGA’s Virginias vs. Carolinas team championships in Lynchburg.
Kane was runner-up in the inaugural, 32-man field Central Virginia Match Play Championship, losing in a hard-fought close match to University of Virginia golf coach Bowen Sargent in 2007.
This year’s 16 players have been divided into two brackets with the winners of those brackets facing in Sunday afternoon’s 18-hole (or less) championship.
Here are the seedings and brackets for this weekend’s match play event:
Bracket A — (1) Paul Kane vs. (16) Forbes Feminella; (8) Brant Dixon vs. (9) Jud Foster; (4) Jeff Toms vs. (13) Neil Davis; (5) David Passerell vs. (12) Brent Daughtrey.
Bracket B — (2) Jerry Burton vs. (15) Bob Rotella; (7) Ty Grove vs. (10) Jim Higginbotham; (3) Scott Garrison vs. (14) Bill Hamilton; (6) Brad Ferguson vs. (11) Kevin Gibson.
Last year’s champion, Old Trail’s Nick Little, has since turned pro and will not compete. Little pulled off a dramatic, 18th-hole victory last August over Moyers when he holed his approach for an eagle to end the match.
Ten of this year’s 16 players have competed in both previous Central Virginia Match Play tournaments at Spring Creek, including two members at the event’s course: No. 2 seed Jerry Burton and No. 9 seed Foster.
No. 6 seed Brad Ferguson and No. 10 seed Jim Higginbotham also call Spring Creek home.
Four previous Battle Trophy champions are in the field, including Higginbotham, who won the first ever Battle Trophy in 1991, Rotella (1993), Kane (2001), and five-time winner Passerell (‘96, ‘97, ‘98, ‘99, 2000).