Meghan Stasi has been among the elite mid-amateur players in
the country for a while now.
Even for the four-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion,
though, Tuesday had to be a long day. It ended with the South Jersey native
failing to reach the quarterfinals of the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship
at Champions Golf Club’s Cypress Creek Course in Houston.
But not before the kinds of twists and turns that only
match-play golf can provide.
Stasi, who resides in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. these days, dropped
a 1-up decision to Mary Jane Hiestand of Naples, Fla. in the round of 16. The
18th hole was Stasi’s 41st of the day.
This U.S. Women’s Mid-Am was supposed to be a home game for
Hiestand as it was originally scheduled to be played in Naples at Quail Creek
Country Club. But Hurricane Irma rendered Quail Creek unplayable and the
membership at Champions stepped up and staged the event on short notice.
Still, Hiestand will be taking on Courtney McKim of Raleigh,
N.C. in Wednesday morning’s quarterfinals after McKim knocked off Mallory
Hetzell of Virginia Beach, Va., 4 and 3, in another round-of-16 match.
Stasi, an eight-time Women’s Golf Association of
Philadelphia Match-Play Championship winner, built an early 3-up lead over
Hiestand, winning the second hole with a par, the fourth hole with a birdie and
the seventh hole with a par.
But Hiestand came roaring back, winning the 10th,
12th, 13th and 17th holes with pars to take a
1-up lead to the final hole and holding on to that advantage.
It was a similar scenario for Stasi in her second-round
match with Tara Joy-Connelly earlier Tuesday. Stasi led an early lead get away
before finally putting Joy-Connelly away on the 23rd hole.
Stasi and Joy-Connelly of North Palm Beach, Fla. were
teammates on Florida’s third-place finisher in the USGA Women’s State Team
Championship earlier this fall at The Club at Las Campanas’ Sunrise Course in
Santa Fe, N.M., so I’m sure they’re familiar with each other’s game.
Twice on the front nine, Stasi had 3-up leads and she was
still 2-up with four holes to play. But Joy-Connelly won the 15th,
16th and 17th holes with pars to take a 1-up lead to the
18th hole. Stasi holed a tough birdie putt on the 18th
hole to send the match to extra holes and finally got a six-foot par putt to
fall on the fifth extra hole to win the match.
“It was a great start for me, but recently I’ve just – the
last few years I’ve been up in the last few holes and decide to give it away,”
Stasi told the USGA website after the victory over Joy-Connelly. “I told myself
from the start, par is your friend, and then I didn’t make par on 15, 16 or 17.
Gave it right back.
“I don’t know how I
quite made that putt on 18, it was off the green and breaking, like a four-foot
break. You just never know.”
Reigning Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur champion Katie Miller
of Jeannette saw her U.S. Women’s Mid-Am bid halted with a 2 and 1 loss to
Hetzell, who would go on to fall to McKim in the round of 16.
Miller was one of the three co-medalists in qualifying with
rounds of 69 and 73 for a 2-under 142 total over the 6,022-yard, par-72 Cypress
Creek layout. But she ran into a hot round by Hetzell, who won five holes
between the second and the 10th, three of them, the third, sixth and
seventh, with birdies to build a 4-up lead.
Miller, a three-time PIAA champion at Hempfield Area and an
all-Atlantic Coast Conference player at North Carolina, battled back by taking
the 11th and 12th holes with pars, but after Hetzell got
one back by winning the 13th with a par, Miller ran out of holes.
Pretty neat story on Miller’s life off the golf course by
Lisa D. Mickey on the USGA website. One little tidbit of news that emerged from
that story is that Aurora Kan, the 2010 PIAA champion as a senior at
Chichester, has decided to give the pro game a shot.
Kan was Miller’s partner at last spring’s U.S. Women’s
Amateur Four-Ball Championship at The Dunes Golf & Beach Resort in Myrtle Beach, S.C. and it was a successful paring as they advanced
to the match-play bracket before falling in the first round. But the story said
Miller had to find a new Four-Ball partner because Kan plans to turn pro.
I know Kan has gone back and forth on whether to turn pro or
not. It’s tough when you see some of your former Purdue teammates and some of your
college rivals making strides in the professional game. I do know one thing:
Kan will give it her best shot.
Miller found a pretty good Four-Ball partner in 2015 U.S.
Women’s Mid-Amateur champion Lauren Greenlief, a former Virginia standout from
Ashburn, Va. Greenlief shared medalist honors at Champions with Miller and
Marissa Mar, a former Stanford standout from San Francisco.
Greenlief, though, saw her bid halted in Tuesday afternoon’s
round of 16 with a 3 and 2 loss to Kelsey Chugg, a former Weber State standout
who has won the Utah Women’s Amateur title four times.
Chugg was 1-down after six holes and proceeded to win five
of the next seven holes to take a commanding 4-up lead with five holes to play.
Chugg’s quarterfinal opponent will be Hayley Hammond of
Mooresville, N.C., who claimed a 2 and 1 victory over Thuhashini Selvaratnam of
Sri Lanka.
Mar, the third qualifying co-medalist, did reach the
quarterfinals, but it wasn’t easy.
In the morning, Mar made par on the final hole to force her
second-round match with Leigh Klasse of Cumberland, Wis. to extra holes before
pulling out the victory with a par on the 20th hole.
That earned Mar a round-of-16 matchup with defending
champion Julia Potter of Indianapolis. Potter jumped out to a 3-up lead, taking
the second hole with birdie, the third hole with par and the sixth hole with
birdie.
But Mar won five of the next seven holes, making birdies at
eight and 13 to take those two holes, to take a 2-up advantage, which she held
on to.
Mar’s quarterfinal opponent will be Amanda Jacobs of
Portland, Ore., who advanced with a 3 and 1 win over 2009 U.S. Women’s Mid-Am
champion Martha Leach of Hebron, Ky.
The quarterfinal winners Wednesday morning will turn right
around and square off in the semifinals Wednesday afternoon.
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