Kristen Gillman looks like she’s ready to try to add a
second U.S. Women’s Amateur title to her resume before she begins her
collegiate career at Alabama later this summer.
Gillman showed her preparations for the U.S. Women’s Amateur
that tees off Aug. 1 at Rolling Green Golf Club are right on schedule with a 3
and 2 victory over South Carolina senior Katelyn Dambaugh in the final of the
114th North and South Women’s Championship Friday at Pinehurst No. 2
Gillman of Austin, Texas won the 2014 U.S. Women’s Amateur
championship by defeating Canadian Brooke Henderson in the final. You can see
Henderson on TV winning major championships on the LPGA Tour these days.
Gillman proved she can navigate a classic course as she
defeated four players in match play after 54 holes of stroke-play qualifying
over the 6,332-yad, par-71 Donald Ross masterpiece in Pinehurst, N.C. She
should be right at home on the William Flynn gem at Rolling Green.
In Friday’s final against Dambaugh, the left-hander who was
the leading lady for a South Carolina team that was one of the final eight
teams who qualified for match play at the NCAA Championship, Gillman was 1-down
after seven holes.
Gillman promptly ripped off four straight wins, taking the
eighth and ninth with pars and the 10th and 11th with
birdies to take a commanding 3-up lead. She had to wait out a two-and-a-half-hour
delay as a thunderstorm moved through, but held off the talented Dambaugh, the
runnerup to UCLA’s Emily Law in voting for the Annika Award that goes to the
top player in college golf.
Gillman had rounds of 75, 79 and 72 to finish in a tie for
ninth in qualifying at 13-over 226. Purdue senior and Big Ten champion August
Kim of St. Augustine, Fla., claimed medalist honors with rounds of 73, 71 and
71 for a 2-over 215 total. Kim is also headed for Rolling Green after taking
medalist honors in a U.S. Women’s Amateur qualifier at waterlogged Hawk Pointe
Golf Club in Washington, N.J. last month.
Gillman’s toughest hurdle in match play came in the first
round as she pulled out a 1-up decision over University of Florida senior Kelly
Grassel of Chesterton, Ind. While that was going on, University of Virginia
sophomore Anna Redding of Concord, N.C. was knocking off Kim in a 2 and 1
upset.
Gillman then cruised to a 7 and 6 win over Redding in the
quarterfinals before a 6 and 5 decision over Jennifer Chang of Cary, N.C. in
the semifinals sent her to the title match.
Dambaugh’s road to the final included a 2 and 1 victory over
Northwestern senior Kacie Komoto of Honolulu, Hawaii, a 5 and 3 win over
Norman, Okla. phenom Yujeung Son and a 1-up decision over Milia Nam of Kalua,
Hawaii.
Penn State sophomore Jackie Rogowicz, the former Pennsbury
standout who earned a ticket to Rolling Green at the Hawk Pointe qualifier,
teed it up at Pinehurst, but failed to make the cut for match play. She had
rounds of 81, 77 and 75 for a 233 total that left her tied for 27th.
Brynn Walker, who won the last two PIAA Class AAA
championships at Radnor, was also at Pinehurst and had rounds of 81, 83 and 81
for a 245 total. Walker will be headed for Chapel Hill, N.C. to begin her
collegiate career at North Carolina next month.
In another note of interest as Rolling Green prepares to
host the best women amateur players in the world in two weeks, eight-time
Philadelphia Women’s Amateur champion Meghan Stasi earned a spot in the field
in a qualifier last week at Lawrence Country Club in Lawrence, Kan.
Stasi, a South Jersey native, was known as Meghan Bolger
when she ripped off seven straight wins in the Women’s Golf Association of
Philadelphia Match Play Championship from 1999 to 2005. She came home two years
ago to add an eighth title.
After a standout collegiate career at Tulane, Stasi coached
at the University of Mississippi and then married Danny Stasi, founding owner
and chef at Shuck N Dive, a popular Cajun restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
She helps out her husband at the restaurant, but has the
flexibility to pursue a high-level amateur career and has won four U.S. Women’s
Mid-Amateur titles.
Stasi was far from her Oakland Park, Fla. home in Kansas
this week, but her 76 earned her a trip to Rolling Green. She finished second,
two shots behind Mexico’s Monica Dibildox, who is preparing to start her
collegiate career at LSU next month.
No comments:
Post a Comment