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32nd Utah Senior State Amateur: Darrin Overson completes a UGA trifecta

Regardless of the outcome, the final match of the 32nd Utah Senior State Amateur Championship was destined to deliver a good story.

Stuart Wallin was positioned to become one of the biggest surprises of the 2025 Utah Golf Association schedule, with his credentials boosted by the big-name players he beat along the way at Bonneville Golf Course.

Darrin Overson had a shot at adding his own name to a club that featured one of Utah’s most successful amateur golfers of the past half-century.

The champion: Overson, 3 and 1. His reward: A trophy that joins State Amateur and Mid-Amateur awards in a collection that only Utah Golf Hall of Fame member Todd Barker previously could claim.

Overson’s 17-hole achievement Thursday was hardly stress-free, but he didn’t have to play as much golf as the other winners. Mark Gardiner went 23 holes vs. Rick Lloyd in the Super-Senior (60-over) division and Michael Hacker took 20 holes to top Rob Bachman for the Legends (70-over) title.

Each of those winners also claimed a UGA Winterchamps title in March. Gardiner and Hacker then won their Senior Stroke Play categories in May. Overson fell short in that event, but he has left little else undone on the golf course as a senior rookie.

Overson’s successful season has been framed by the passing of his father, Donald, in March at age 73. That’s why he used the qualifier “a good year of golf” to describe 2025.

“It’s been a weird year, for sure,” he added. “Turning 50 was not something I was looking forward to, right? It means you’re getting older. But having an avenue, and a place to play with guys my age and see how I stack up, it’s been a really good year. It’s been fun.”

Overson, who works as a human resources service broker, had to go through three-time champion Brigham Gibbs in the quarterfinals and two-time UGA Senior Men’s Player of the Year Shane McMillan in the semifinals. Wallin, a firearms business owner who’s new to UGA competition, beat defending champion Jon Wright in the round of 16 and No. 1 seed John Owen in the semifinals.

And then he kept Overson from leading in the final match until No. 11. Wallin pulled even on No. 12, before Overson won Nos. 13, 16 and 17 (birdie, par, birdie) to end the match.

“I love playing with the senior guys,” said Overson, a Provo native who briefly pursued pro golf after his Colorado State career. “It’s all about just having fun, for sure. We know why we’re out here. We’re not competing for dollar bills or anything like that.”

SUPER-SENIOR

Whether the drive home took him to the south part of the Salt Lake Valley or the southern end of Utah, the Super-Senior runner-up would be doomed to replay his missed chances.

The much longer drive became the far happier trek, in the case of Mark Gardiner. The Washington, Utah, resident could enjoy the I-15 jaunt, even after missing opportunities to close out his match vs. Rick Lloyd long before the 23rd hole.

That was still not Gardiner’s longest match of the week, after he went 26 holes in the first round of the 16-golfer bracket.

Gardiner missed a birdie putt from inside of 4 feet on the first extra hole, the par-5 No. 1. He managed to laugh it off, and stayed in the game when Lloyd barely missed birdie attempts on the next three holes. Gardiner’s par on the par-5 No. 5 ended things.

“There’s a reason we’re amateurs, and it’s right here in the head,” Gardiner said. “But I smile the whole way. I mean, this is just the best game there is. … Just live for another hole. Put it behind you and just try to hit another shot. That’s all I try to do.”

Lloyd was the defending champion; he also won a title in 2022, when Super-Senior eligibility was 65 and older.

Having retired after 26 years in the U.S. Air Force and moved to Utah last year, Gardiner said after posing with the trophy, “The native Utah guys have had their names plastered on that thing for years and years. I’m very happy to have my name on there, next to them.”

LEGENDS

As his 20-foot, sharply breaking putt from the fringe of the No. 2 green rolled along his intended line and took the proper turn toward the hole, Michael Hacker said to himself, “Oh, man. This could go in.”

It did, ultimately surprising him even more than his short misses on the previous two holes that could have ended his match vs. Rob Bachman, before he won in 20 holes.

“Ridiculous,” Hacker said of that sequence of events, leading to the dramatic conclusion. “And (to) make something like this …”

That’s golf, right? And about 16 months after missing a short putt on the first playoff hole that gave Bachman the Legends title in the 2024 Senior Stroke Play, Hacker was like Gardiner. He could enjoy the drive home to St. George as a repeat champion.

“Just got to keep fighting, that’s all,” Hacker said of responding after his missed opportunities via three-putts on No. 18 and No. 1. “Rob kept fighting the whole way and I gave it to him for a while, but I feel like I took it there. So I feel pretty good about it.”

The UGA doesn’t name a Legends Player of the Year. Otherwise, Hacker would be a runaway winner. “It’s been a phenomenal year,” he said.

 

2025 Utah Senior State Amateur championship recap written by Fairways Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe. Photography by Fairways Media/Randy Dodson.