HOT SPRINGS -- A day after grinding his way to a couple of close wins in the VSGA Super Senior Amateur Championship, Roanoker Bill Shrader discovered what it's like to be stuck in the pit of the grinder Thursday.

It was not fun.

"I just got chopped up, and then I got chopped up some more," Shrader lamented. "Talk about running into a buzzsaw!"

Making mince meat of two-time champion Shrader in short-order fashion, Williamsburg's Harry Cain won six of the first nine holes and strolled to an easy 5-and-4 triumph in the 70-and-over championship match at The Homestead Resort's Cascades Course.

"I don't think I've ever been down dormie-7 in my life," said Shrader, 76, referring to his dire predicament through 11 holes. "Thing was, I was dormie-7 and I didn't feel like I was doing terrible.

"Harry is a real fine player. I've known about this guy for a long time, but I know him a lot better now."

Cain, who was 3 under par through 11 holes, won the first two holes, went 3-up on the fifth hole, and then won Nos. 6 and 7 to go 5-up. Shrader looked like a lock to win the par-4 ninth hole, but Cain hit a brilliant lob wedge over a sand trap to 4 feet of the cup. A disbelieving Shrader, after a perfectly placed tee shot, then chunked his 20-yard approach and eventually conceded Cain's birdie putt to fall 6-down.

Game over.

"I'm thinking I finally have the advantage and he hits an incredible shot," Shrader said. "So I'm thinking I've got to hit a little pop shot, stick it in there, and I chunk the dadgum thing."

Cain, 71, was 3 under through 11 holes before missing a shot. Shrader won Nos. 12 and 13 with pars to make the final score a bit more respectable.

"What pleases me most is that when I get home I've got to post five scores, and four of them will be under my age," said Cain, a former VSGA Senior Stroke Play champion and winner of last year's VSGA Grand Masters title.

In the 65-69 age division title match, quasi-Hot Springs native Jack Vardaman captured the final two holes to nip Earlysville's Donald Robertson 1-up. Robertson, 67, a native of Martinsville, had a one-hole edge until Vardaman ripped a 3-wood from 235 yards to 3 feet of the hole at the par-five 17th for a conceded eagle. Vardaman, 69, took the crown when Robertson bogeyed the par-3 18th, missing an 8-foot par putt after chipping short from the high-grass collar surrounding the right bunker.

"Obviously, the big shot was the second at 17," said Vardaman, a retired lawyer who spends the summer in a second home he owns in Hot Springs.

"I smoked that 3-wood. It's hard to do any better than that. That got me even in the match ... then to put the ball on the green on 18 first was huge, I thought."

Vardaman, a Washington and Lee graduate, played on the 1959 Generals golf team that won the Virginia Intercollegiate title at the Cascades.

"That's how I know about this place," he said. "Man, I love it up here."