Little seeks elusive trophy

There’s still a few spots reserved in Nick Little’s trophy case and one of them is for the Jefferson Cup.

Little, who has dominated Central Virginia amateur golf for the past two years, will lead the field heading into today’s 54-hole annual Jefferson Cup Invitational at Birdwood Golf Club. It is one of only two local tournaments that Little hasn’t won.

He’s won practically everything else, including three local tournaments this summer: the Faulconer at Lake Monticello, the Old Trail Team Championships on his home course, and the prestigious Kenridge Invitational at Farmington. The Radford University golf team member is only the second Central Virginia player to have captured the Kenridge crown since the 1970s.

On top of it all, Little has successfully defended his Battle Trophy title, repeating as the winner even before this weekend’s final event. The award is named after the late Bill Battle, former United States Golf Association president and local golfing enthusiast.

While most of the area’s top amateur players are included in the Birdwood field, Little is eyeing yet another trophy. He didn’t break through into the winner’s circle until his Reines Jewelers Charlottesville City Championship in 2006, but has added four more titles to his credit since then, winning the three mentioned above, including the Old Trail event twice.

He has also taken his game outside of Central Virginia, having performed well in both the Virginia State Amateur and the SunTrust Open of Virginia. He also competed in the U.S. Amateur last August.

Little will receive the Battle Trophy at Saturday night’s Jefferson Cup event dinner. The award is symbolic of Central Virginia’s top amateur player and is in its 18th year of competition. Little joins Tim Pemberton, David Passerell, and David Bell as the trophy’s only multiple winners.

Today’s event has a collection of some of the region’s best players, including city champ Ty Grove, who won his club championship at Old Trail last week.

The top 16 players in the Battle standings after the Jefferson Cup will qualify to play in next weekend’s Central Virginia Match Play Championships, hosted for the second straight year by Spring Creek. UVa golf coach Bowen Sargent is defending champion of the match play event, having defeated Farmington’s Paul Kane for the inaugural title.

Birdwood, which has hosted several prestigious events and was the college home of professionals Steve Marino (who holds the course record of 63), James Driscoll and Leah Wigger, will be playing between 6,700 and 6,900 yards for the three days of stroke play.

The course was originally designed for collegiate tournament golf, but has since been enhanced by Pete Dye’s group in 2005 to challenge the tournament golfer even to a greater degree.

“I believe a 54-hole total under par will be in contention to win this year’s Jefferson Cup,” said Birdwood head professional Martin Winters, who recently enjoyed an addition to the family with a son, Luke. “Typically, the player that plays No. 15 and No. 18 [the difficult finishing holes] the best for the three days will have a great shot at winning the event.”

Winters said that he is proud that the tournament has grown stronger each season. There are roughly 65 players with handicap indexes below 5.0 in addition to a number of players from around the state that will have a chance to bring home the coveted Jefferson Cup trophy come Sunday evening.

Of course, Battle’s absence will be felt. He often showed up to the event to present the trophy, just as he did to Curtis Strange when the Norfolk native became the last player to win back-to-back U.S. Open titles in 1988 and 1989.

“The course is playing very firm and the greens are rolling true,” Winters said of the Birdwood layout, which is superbly maintained by superintendent Matt Wade and his crew.