Dan Walters, left, and Evan Beck reached the final match at the U. S. Amateur Four-Ball

Championship in May.

BECK REACHES ANOTHER USGA FINAL Just nine months after winning the 2024 U. S. Mid-Amateur Championship, Princess Anne Country Club’ s Evan Beck found himself on the precipice of another USGA title. Along with Dan Walters, Beck’ s old assistant coach at Wake Forest, Beck reached his fourth USGA final at May’ s U. S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship. Beck and Walters eventually fell to teenagers Will Hartman and Tyler Mawhinney, who broke open a tied match late and recorded a 3-and-1 win at Plainfield Country Club in New Jersey.

Hartman, an 18-year-old set to play at Vanderbilt, had kind words after the match.

“ Evan was a stud,” he said.“ He played great today. He showed why he’ s one of the best mid-ams in the world and it was fun playing with him. He didn’ t hold anything back, and I think that makes this win feel a little bit better.”

Beck and Walters had advanced as far as the semifinals before this year’ s run to the title match.

“ Very disappointing is what I would start with,” said Beck, who participated

in the Masters in April and the U. S. Open in June.“ They are great players, but I feel like we belong in this situation, and we just got outplayed in the final.”

VIRGINIA GOLF HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCES CLASS OF 2025 Four new members will join the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame as part of its Class of 2025. This marks the 10th Hall of Fame class. The inaugural class was inducted in spring 2016.

The new class includes Bill Battle, Don Ryder, Matt Sughrue and Pat Tallent. They will be inducted on October 21 at Salisbury Country Club in Midlothian, with Golf Channel’ s Johnson Wagner serving as the ceremony’ s emcee.

Battle, who died in 2008 at age 87, was a longtime Farmington Country Club member who served as president of the United States Golf Association from 1988-89. Ryder retired in 2015 after a remarkable 40-year career the Omni Homestead Resort, much of it spent as the resort’ s director of golf. Sughrue and Tallent are both accomplished players who made their biggest marks on the national and international stage in senior golf. Sughrue

has been a match-play mainstay in the U. S. Senior Amateur, reaching four quarterfinals and one championship match.

Tallent won both the U. S. Senior Amateur and British Senior Amateur championships during an illustrious career that also included a VSGA Amateur title.

Look for a full rundown of the new class in the September-October issue of Virginia Golfer.

TOM BOOKER( 1939-2025) Tom Booker earned acclaim for many things. Nicknamed“ Red,” he was a standout athlete at the University of Richmond, played minor-league baseball in the New York Yankees’ system, was a radio host in Richmond and was a devoted member of New Bridge Baptist Church in Sandston. In golf circles, however, he was known for his larger-than-life persona as an ambassador for the VSGA One-Day Event program.

Booker died on May 23, surrounded by family— a few months short of his 86th birthday. Booker is survived by his wife Nancy, two daughters, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. For 21 years, Booker was the face of VSGA One-Days. In many

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