When Brynn Walker and Madelein Herr headed for the Bandon
Dunes Resort in Bandon, Ore. for the inaugural U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball
Championship in May of 2015, there were zero expectations.
They were pals who, during their junior golf seasons in the
fall of 2014, decided to give a shot in a qualifier for the new USGA event,
which took the place of the old U.S. Public Links Championships on the USGA
championship schedule. It was a fall scholastic season that culminated with
Walker, representing Radnor, winning the PIAA Class AAA title in a playoff with
Canon-McMillan’s Lauren Waller.
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| Brynn Walker |
Herr, who plays at Council Rock North, was the youngest of
the Herr clan that had dominated District One, older brother Zach had won a
pair of district titles and was a perennial contender at the state tournament
and older sister Erica had won back-to-back PIAA Class AAA individual titles.
But they were juniors in high school and the event was new
and well, it was anybody’s guess how they would do.
What happened was pure magic. Rounds of 68 and 67 at Bandon
Dunes’ Pacific Dunes Course left Team WalkHerr in a tie for third in qualifying
at 9-under par. But then came match play and match play is well, different.
Then came a victory over Jennifer Kupcho and Gillian Vance
in 20 excruciating holes, then another overtime win in 19 holes over Carolyn
Zhao and Brooke Seay, then there they were on TV, for crying out loud, playing
Meghan Stasi, a four-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion and an eight-time
Philadelphia Women’s Amateur champion, and Dawn Woodard and taking care of
them, 5 and 3.
Can you say semi-freaking-finals? Herr’s father Eric was
along for the ride, coming up with names for Team WalkHerr’s birdies. In a
recap of the week by the USGA, a writer said Walker and Herr had a “mid-am feel
about them.” Left unsaid was: Not like the high school juniors they are.
Team WalkHerr finally ran out of magic in the semis,
falling, 3 and 2, to Robynn Ree and Hannah O’Sullivan. Ree is teeing it up this
weekend for a powerful Southern California team in the NCAA Championship. All
O’Sullivan did later in the summer of 2015 was win the U.S. Women’s Amateur
championship. She’ll defend her title at Rolling Green Golf Club in Springfield
this summer and then join Ree at Southern Cal.
“We wanted to win that thing so bad,” Walker said when she
looked back at the Four-Ball a month later.
On their way to the airport to come home, Team WalkHerr
checked the USGA website to see where the next Four-Ball was going to be held.
Maybe they’d give it another shot. In the process of doing that, they realized
the run to the semifinals exempted them into the 2016 Four-Ball. Oh yeah, they
were giving it another shot.
The 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship tees
off Saturday at The Streamsong Resort’s Blue Course in Streamsong, Fla. It’s a
Tom Doak design, the same guy who did such a wonderful job turning some
beautiful Chester County countryside into Stonewall, site of this year’s men’s
U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship.
Team WalkHerr, which tees off at 12:48 p.m. Saturday in the
first round of qualifying for match play, is one of 12 returning intact teams,
including Zhao and Seay and Stasi and Woodard.
Last fall, Herr won the District One Class AAA title and
then Walker repeated as the PIAA Class AAA champion.
Then Walker capped her senior season at Radnor the next day
by leading the Raiders to the PIAA Class AAA boys team title.
As good as Walker is individually, she has a proven track
record as a team player. As a freshman, she was the missing piece to the puzzle
for a Radnor girls team that turned a 2011 runnerup finish into a 2012 state champion.
In the fall of her sophomore season, she was chosen to represent
Pennsylvania in the USGA State Team Championship and helped the Keystone State
make the cut. Pennsylvania finished last of the 27 teams that played the last
day, but she helped them get there.
Following last spring’s successful partnership with Herr,
Walker was again chosen to represent Pennsylvania in the USGA State Team Championship,
this time with a couple of recently graduated collegiate standouts, Aurora Kan,
the 2010 PIAA champion at Chichester who went on to an outstanding career at
Purdue, and Ellen Ceresko, a two-time Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur champion who
was coming off an outstanding career at Penn State.
They finished third at Dalhousie Golf Club in Cape
Girardeau, Mo., one of Pennsylvania’s best finishes since it won the inaugural
title in 1995 with the imposing trio of Liz Haines, Judy Oliver and Hall of
Famer Carol Semple Thompson.
Then Walker exited the scholastic stage with an individual
state title and one more state team crown, this time as part of a coed team
competing for the boys’ title.
“It will be hard to top Bandon Dunes, but we’ll see,” Walker
said last month as she prepared for this year’s Four-Ball. “We just complement
each other really well. Maddy’s pretty straight off the tee which allows me to
be more aggressive.”
Walker isn’t sure why she thrives in the team dynamic, but
she does have a theory.
“When it’s just me, I tend to put a lot of pressure on
myself and that doesn’t always work out well,” Walker said. “But when I’m
playing with someone else, I don’t want to put the pressure on them and that
allows me to pull it off.”
This time next year, they will be playing college golf,
Walker for North Carolina, which reached the NCAA Championship this spring and
figures to get even stronger with the addition of Walker, and Herr for Penn
State, a young team on the rise this season.
They won’t be back at the Four-Ball next season, so this
will be their last shot for a while. With maybe a little, well at least some,
expectations this time.
Team WalkHerr isn’t the only local team to keep an eye on at
a Four-Ball competition.
The U.S. Men’s Amateur Team Championship tees off Saturday
at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., site of five U.S. Opens, most
recently Australian Geoff Ogilvy’s victory in 2006.
The Bash Brothers, two-time BMW Philadelphia Amateur
champion Michael McDermott and 2014 BMW Philadelphia Amateur champion Jeff
Osberg, tee off at 12:42 p.m. on Winged Foot’s East Course in the first round
of qualifying for match play.
McDermott is a member at Merion Golf Club and Osberg is at
Huntingdon Valley Country Club, but they both spent significant parts of their
golfing lives representing Llanerch Country Club. When they met in an epic
second-round encounter in last year’s Philly Am at Llanerch, a match McDermott
would win, their better ball was probably 10-under.
They are good friends and great competitors and they both
hit the you-know-what out of the ball. They should make a really tough
Four-Ball team.
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