Symetra Tour will return to Raven's Claw for Valley Forge Invitational

   The Symetra Tour, the LPGA’s developmental circuit, will return to the Philadelphia area with the second edition of the Valley Forge Invitational, which will be played the weekend after Memorial Day at Raven’s  Claw Golf Club in Limerick Township, Montgomery County.

   The announcement was made last week by the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board (VFTCB) with Mike Nichols, the chief business officer of the Symetra Tour, affirming that the LPGA Tour’s minor league would be returning to Raven’s Claw.

   The Symetra Tour is still in the process of putting together its complete 2019 schedule. It has announced that the season will begin with a new event, the SKYiGOLF Championship that tees off March 7 at the Charlotte Harbor National Golf Club at Bobcat Trail in North Port on Florida’s Suncoast. The event will have a $250,000 purse, which matches the record for the highest Symetra Tour purse.

   At Raven’s Claw, the aspiring LPGA pros will be playing for a top prize of $15,000 out of a total purse of $100,000.

   Raven’s Claw is an Ed Shearon design that opened in 2005. I covered the opening round of the girls District One Championship there in the fall of 2007 when Chichester freshman Aurora Kan took the first step on her way to three straight district titles.

   The girls district tournament has moved its opening round to a couple of different western Montco sites, including Hickory Valley Golf Club and, for the last several years, Gilbertsville Golf Club. After a cut, the survivors of the opening round complete the tournament at Turtle Creek Golf Club, a few miles east of Raven’s Claw on Ridge Pike.

   The release I saw listed the dates for the Valley Forge Invitational as May 27, which is Memorial Day, to June 2. Last year’s inaugural event started the Thursday before the start of Memorial Day weekend and wrapped up the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. So this year’s edition will be a week later. I’m guessing that the actual 54-hole tournament will be contested Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

   The top 10 finishers on the Symetra Tour money list graduate to the Big Show, the LPGA Tour, for the following year. It is called the Volvik Race for the Card and every event counts for a player trying to take it to the next level.

   Former UCLA standout Louise Ridderstrom of Sweden entered the final round of last year’s inaugural Valley Forge Invitational trailing by three and proceeded to blister the 6,080-yard, par-71 Raven's  Claw layout with an 8-under 63, setting a competitive course record in the process, to claim a four-shot victory.

   But the $15,000 Ridderstrom won at Raven’s Claw was not enough to get her to the LPGA Tour as she finished 19^th on the Symetra Tour money list with $43,238 in earnings. Ridderstrom ultimately did graduate to the LPGA Tour when she finished among the players tied for 36^th in the LPGA’s inaugural Q-Series, the culmination of the LPGA Q-School, which was a two-week, eight-round marathon contested over two of the Pinehurst Resort’s courses last fall.

   England’s Charlotte Thomas finished tied for fourth at Raven’s Claw and did advance to the LPGA Tour via the Symetra Tour, her $60,952 in earnings landing her in the eighth spot in the Volvik Race for the Card.

   In a stretch of a few weeks in 2016 Thomas, a senior, led a bunch of Washington freshmen to the NCAA Championship at Eugene Country Club and then helped Great Britain & Ireland defeat the United States in the Curtis Cup Match at Dun Loughaire Golf Club in suburban Dublin.

   You never know how these things will work out, but you just might see another of the stars of that GB&I team, Ireland’s Leona Maguire, at Raven’s Claw this spring.

   Maguire probably hurt her chances of making the LPGA Tour by completing her senior season at Duke, wrapping up one of the finest careers in the history of women’s college golf by leading the Blue Devils into the match-play bracket in the NCAA Championship at Karsten Creek Golf Club last spring.

   Maguire is also eligible to play on the Ladies European Tour, so it’s possible she’ll stay home in Europe, but the Symetra Tour offers a clearer path to the LPGA Tour.

   Maguire made her professional debut in the ShopRite LPGA Classic, presented by ACER, at the Seaview Hotel and Golf Club in Galloway Township, N.J. across the bay from Atlantic City last year.

   Speaking of the ShopRite, it will follow right behind the Valley Forge Invitational this year. Not sure if that scheduling is intentional, but it would afford the Symetra Tour players a short trip to the Jersey Shore to try to make the field at Seaview in the ShopRite’s Monday qualifier.

   Isabella DiLisio, the 2013 PIAA champion as a junior at Mount St. Joseph, received a sponsor’s exemption into the Valley Forge Invitational as an amateur last spring. Coming off her junior year at Notre Dame, the Hatfield native made the 36-hole cut and finished tied for 34^th.

   Montco Golf, VFTCB’s dedicated golf brand, promoted the inaugural Valley Forge Invitational as well as it could on relatively short notice last year. The group will have a little more lead time to get the word out about the event this year.

   Admission was free for last year’s Valley Forge Invitational thanks to a contribution to the event from the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia. I wouldn’t be surprised if that relationship continues this year.

   There will be players at Raven’s Claw that you will see competing on television – or your phone if that’s how you like to watch your golf – some day. And you can see those future stars up close and personal. It’s always fun to catch them on the way up.