Palmer serves up a winner at 40th Iowa Senior Amateur, Sergeant captures Super Senior Division

West Des Moines’ Joe Palmer (above) is used to serving up winners.

Palmer added his name to the Iowa Senior Amateur trophy on Wednesday afternoon for the third time. Palmer won the event in 2013 and 2015 prior to his recent victory.

Palmer, who was in a dogfight with Jon Brown most of the day in the final round, got off to a nice start. Both Palmer and Brown turned in 33 (-3) and Brown pulled ahead after Palmer found trouble on #13 and made double bogey.

Palmer needed something to happen and it did. Palmer birdied three of his last four holes, including back to back on #15 and #16, to outdistance Brown by two when the dust had settled.

“Those (the back to back birdies on #15-16) got the round salvaged,” Palmer said. “I didn’t make many mistakes (early today) and then I hooked it into the bushes on #13 and had to take an unplayable. That kind of derailed me a bit, but I just tried to stay in the moment. It was unfortunate that Jon had some trouble in the bunker (on #16).”

Stay in the moment he did and closed the door on Brown with a 25 foot birdie putt on #18 (pictured right) that looked good from the start. Palmer who will head to Oregon for the U.S. Senior Amateur on Thursday commented that this is an event that is very important to him.

“The bomb on #18 was awesome,” Palmer said. “It looked good about 10 feet out. I don’t want to ever miss this event if I can. I wanted to commit to our senior major (event). I have time to get to Oregon and I am excited to get there.”

Palmer said playing 54 holes and winning the 40th Iowa Senior Amateur is the best prep he could ask for heading into the U.S. Senior Amateur.

“This was as good of a warm up as any,” Palmer said. “One of the keys this week for me was only having to play six holes on the first day (due to weather delay), it was getting dicey out there. I used to consider myself a ‘mudder’, but maybe not so much anymore. It was nice to get a restart and play 30 holes on day two at one under. I was glad to get 54 holes in.”

In the Super Senior Division, Dave Sergeant (left) bettered his age (73) in both the second and third round to win by two strokes over a hard charging Jim Butler. Sergeant put together rounds of 75-72-71 (+2) for the event and admitted he didn’t really know where he stood coming down the stretch. Butler closed with a 33 (-3), including three birdies in his first four holes coming in on the back nine (Butler started on #10).

“I thought Jim was leading with all the birdies he was making,” Sergeant said. “I am really happy to win.”

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