Four of the five players who comprised the lineup when Seton
Hall was the runnerup to Georgetown in the Big East Championship this spring
teed it up in one of the longest-running amateur events in the country, the 118th
Women’s Western Golf Association National Amateur last week at Mistwood Golf
Club in Romeoville, Ill.
Three of them made the top 32 who advanced to match play,
although all three lost in the opening round. Still, a pretty good showing for
the Pirates.
Lizzie Winn, a junior from Sylvania, Ohio, added a
1-under-par 71 over the 6,131-yard, par-72 Mistwood layout in the second round
to her opening-round 74 for a 1-over 145 total that left her tied for 16th
in the stroke-play qualifying.
Junior Sammie Staudt, who starred scholastically at
Coatesville, bounced back from an opening-round 76 with a 1-under 70 to finish
a shot behind Winn in the group tied for 23rd at 146.
Junior Maddie Sager, the PIAA Class AAA runnerup in 2015 as
a senior at Owen J. Roberts, was another shot back in 147 after she added an
even-par 72 to her opening-round 75, but she still had some work to do to make
her way into the match-play bracket.
Sager was in a group of eight players in a playoff for the
final four spots in match play. And Sager did what she had done all day. She
made 21 straight pars, the last three in the playoff to nail down a spot in
match play.
Sophomore Mia Kness, the PIAA Class AAA champion in 2016 as
a senior at Peters Township, looked like she was going to join her fellow
Pirates in the match-play bracket, but a disastrous triple bogey on the 18th
hole left her at 150, three shots out of the playoff. Kness opened with a solid
2-over 74 and ended up with a 76 in the second round.
Winn, Sager and Kness all qualified for the U.S. Women’s
Amateur at San Diego Country Club last summer, although none made it to match
play.
Sager had a tough customer in the opening round,
second-seeded Brianne Bolden, a senior at Lincoln- Way Central High School from
Mokena, Ill. Bolden cruised to a 6 and 5 victory over Sager.
Staudt dropped a 2 and 1 decision to Maggie Ashmore, a
redshirt senior at Augusta University out of Kingston, Ga. Winn fell, 3 and 1,
to Mikhaela Fortuna of the Philippines.
Emilee Hoffman, a junior at Texas from Folsom, Calif., would
not be denied a Women’s Western National Amateur crown.
Texas’ roster last season had the reigning U.S. Women’s
Amateur champion in senior Sophia Schubert, the reigning European Ladies
Championship winner in Agathe Laisne, a freshman from France, and one of the
top freshmen in the country in Kaitlyn Papp. But it was Hoffman who led the
Longhorns to the team title in the Big 12 Championship for the second straight
year.
Hoffman roared out of the gate in qualifying with a
sparkling 7-under 65 and added a 2-under 70 to take medalist honors in
qualifying by five shots with her 9-under 135 total. Like the weather in the
Chicago area last week, she only got hotter.
Hoffman edged Indiana recruit Alexis Miesotwski, 1-up, in
the opening round, cruised to a 4 and 3 victory over Fortuna, who had knocked
off Winn, and topped Katharine Parker, a senior at Virginia from Houston, 1-up,
in the semifinals to earn a spot in Saturday’s scheduled 36-hole final against Tristyn
Nowlin, a junior at Illinois from Richmond, Ky.
Hoffman came out firing in the final, scorching the
Mistwood layout for eight birdies in the morning round to take a commanding
7-up lead. Nowlin did well to extend the match to the 11th hole in
the afternoon in suffering an 8 and 7 setback.
Hoffman joins some pretty elite company of women who have
claimed medalist honors and gone on to win the Women’s Western National
Amateur, including Brittany Lang, Stacy Lewis and Ariya Jutanugarn, current
LPGA regulars and major champions all.
Nowlin reached the final with a 3 and 2 victory over Bolden,
the high school senior who was seeded second and knocked off Sager in the
opening round of match play, in the semifinals.
No comments:
Post a Comment