Looks like Katie Miller of Jeannette and Lauren Greenlief of
Ashburn, Va. will be a pretty tough duo when they team up for the U.S. Women’s
Amateur Four-Ball Championship at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, Calif.
next spring.
The 32-year-old Miller, a three-time PIAA champion at
Hempfield Area and an all-Atlantic Coast Conference performer at North
Carolina, and the 27-year-old Greenlief, the 2015 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur
champion, were two of the three co-medalists when qualifying for this year’s
U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship was completed Sunday at Champions Golf
Club’s Cypress Creek Course in Houston.
Playing in her 15th USGA championship, Greenlief,
a former Virginia standout, matched the tournament’s single-round qualifying
record with a 4-under-par 68 over the 6,022-yard, par-72 Cypress Creek layout
to get to 2-under 142. Her 68 was also the low round of the two-day qualifying
as Cypress Creek proved to be a challenging test for the mid-am ladies.
The U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur was originally scheduled to be
played at Quail Creek Country Club in Naples, Fla. last month, but Hurricane
Irma left the course unplayable and the membership at Champions stepped up and
is hosting the event on short notice.
Miller, the reigning Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur champion,
made two birdies down the stretch to join her Four-Ball partner at 2-under 142.
Miller had shared the opening-round lead with 2016 U.S. Women’s Mid-Am runnerup
Shannon Johnson of Norton, Mass. after each carded a 3-under 69 in Saturday’s
opening round. Miller added a 1-over 73 Sunday.
Miller and Greenlief were joined at the top of the
leaderboard by former Stanford standout Marissa Mar of San Francisco, who
posted a 2-under 70 Sunday after opening with an even-par 72 Saturday.
The medalist from the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am qualifier
administered by the Golf Association of Philadelphia at Concord Country Club,
Alyssa Roland of Overbrook Golf Club, rallied in the second round with a 77 to
finish at 16-over 160 and earn a spot in an 8-for-5 playoff for the last five
spots in the match-play bracket Monday morning.
The 27-year-old Roland, the 2010 Ivy League champion at
Yale, lives and works in New York City, but sneaks home whenever possible to
work on her game at Overbrook.
Miller started on the back nine Sunday and had bogeys at 10,
12 and 18, but got two of those strokes back with birdies at four and six.
Greenlief was brutally efficient with birdies at seven, 10,
14 and 15 and no bogeys on her card in fashioning the low round of the
qualifying.
Johnson, the runnerup to Julia Potter of Indianapolis at The
Kahkwa Club in Erie a year ago, struggled a little down the stretch, but her
2-over 74 left her a shot behind the three co-medalists at 1-under 143. She was
joined at that figure by Kathy Kurata of Pasadena, Calif. Kurata, 57 years
young, added a 1-under 71 to her opening-round 72.
Meghan Stasi, the four-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Am champion
from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., easily made the match-play bracket as she added a
75 to her opening-round 76 for a 151 total that left her tied for 23rd.
Stasi, a South Jersey native, has won the Women’s Golf Association of
Philadelphia Match-Play Championship eight times, seven of them under her
maiden name, Meghan Bolger.
Two of the players who advanced out of the qualifier at
Concord, Wilmington Country Club’s Meghan Perry and Carol Davies of Garrett
Park, Md., landed in a large group of players at 20-over 164. Perry added an 84
to her opening-round 80 while Davis carded an 83 Sunday after opening with an 81.
Catherine Elliott of Merion Golf Club, who also qualified at
Concord, finished at 165. Elliott, a product of the Academy of Notre Dame and
Penn and the runnerup in the Philadelphia Women’s Amateur last summer, improved
by five shots from her opening-round 85 with an 80 Sunday.
Also landing on that 164 figure was Karen Siegel, a Penn
graduate and an assistant coach for the Lehigh women’s golf team. Siegel, a
regular on the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia circuit, opened with a
solid 78 Saturday, but struggled with an 86 in Sunday’s second round.
Also at 164 was Katrin Wolfe, a western Pennsylvania
contemporary of Miller’s at Westmont-Hilltop outside of Johnstown in her
scholastic days and a former Penn State standout. Wolfe rebounded from an opening-round
85 with a 79 Sunday. Wolfe lost to Miller in the Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur
semifinals at West Shore Country Club last summer.
Katie Dwyer of New York City, a former Georgetown standout,
was the first alternate at Concord and got into the field. She had rounds of 86
and 85 for a 171 total.
I’m sure a lot of qualifiers were unable to rearrange their
schedules when the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur was pushed back a month and moved
from the west coast of Florida to Houston. A lot of these women have jobs,
among other responsibilities.
By the way, Miller’s partner in the U.S. Women’s Amateur
Four-Ball last spring was Boothwyn’s Aurora Kan, the 2010 PIAA champion at
Chichester and the 2010 Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur champion. Miller and Kan
advanced to the match-play bracket at The Dunes Golf & Beach Club in Myrtle
Beach, S.C. before falling in the first round.
Miller and Greenlief advanced out of a Four-Ball qualifier
at Kenwood Country Club in Cincinnati in August. It would really be something
if they hooked up in a match at Champions this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment