Brynn Walker has been in the starting lineup for the North
Carolina women’s golf team from the minute she stepped on to the campus at
Chapel Hill as a freshman in the summer of 2016.
There have been ups – the Tar Heels reached the NCAA Championship
at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill. as a team in 2017, Walker’s first
year at North Carolina – and downs – the Tar Heels have been unable to advance
out of the regionals the last two springs – but Walker has always been there.
What the former Radnor High standout has not done lately is
win. Pretty sure she was the medalist in a U.S. Women’s Amateur
qualifier last summer, but Walker might
not have had her hands on a trophy since she repeated as the PIAA Class AAA
champion in 2015 followed the next day by a PIAA Class AAA team crown for the
Raiders.
That is until Friday. With the Women’s Golf Association of
Philadelphia’s Match Play Championship being contested on her home course at
St. Davids Golf Club, the Donald Ross gem where Radnor Township and Delaware
County meets Tredyffrin Township and Chester County, Walker took a shot.
The result was a 12 and 11 victory for Walker over Samantha
Perrotta of Old York Country Club of Chesterfield in the scheduled 36-hole
final Friday.
And it’s not just any old trophy. It is the Glenna Collett
Vare Cup. And it’s never a bad thing to have your name on a trophy that has
names like Mrs. Mark A. Porter – that would be the late, great Dorothy Porter,
the 1949 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion and a four-time U.S. Senior Women’s
Amateur winner – Mrs. Charles E. Wilson – that would be the late, great Helen
Sigel Wilson, who won this championship 14 times, the first time in 1941 and
the last time in 1972 -- Ann Laughlin and Meghan Stasi (nee Bolger), among
others, inscribed on it.
Walker actually lost the first hole of the final to Perrotta
and promptly ripped off wins on the next eight holes to take a 7-up lead. Her
lead was 9-up after the morning 18 holes.
Walker won the 21st and 22nd holes
with birdies to go 11-up, lost the 23rd hole and birdied the 24th
hole to restore her 11-up advantage before closing out the match on the 25th
hole.
The match of the week, though, came in Thursday’s semifinals
in which Walker beat back a huge challenge from Merion Golf Club’s Kaitlyn Lees
to claim a 1-up victory.
Lees won three Inter-Ac League championships over a six-year
period at Agnes Irwin and was a three-time winner of the Pennsylvania Junior
Girls’ Championship. Lees capped her freshman season at Dartmouth with a
third-place finish in the Ivy League Championship this spring. She seems to get
a little bit better, in some aspect of her game, with each passing season.
It looked like Walker was going to cruise into the final
when she won the fifth, eighth and 11th holes to go 3-up. But Lees
came roaring back, taking the 12th, 13th and 15th
holes to get even again.
A birdie on the par-3 17th hole enabled Walker to
get back in front and the two halved the 18th hole. I’m sure there
were some match-play concessions, but Walker carded a 2-under 68 and Lees a
1-under 69.
Lees and Walker’s old scholastic rival Jackie Rogowicz of
Commonwealth National Golf Club shared medalist honors in Monday’s qualifying
round, each carding a 1-over 71. Rogowicz, a two-time District One champion at
Pennsbury, concluded an outstanding four-year career at Penn State this spring.
Walker was a shot behind the top two in qualifying with a
2-over 72.
Walker opened match play with a 4 and 3 victory over Allie
Robertson of RiverCrest Golf Club & Preserve. She then rolled to a 5 and 3
win in Wednesday’s quarterfinals over 2015 Philadelphia Women’s Amateur
champion Suzi Spotleson, also of RiverCrest.
Lees advanced to her semifinal showdown with Walker by
defeating fellow Merion member Catherine Elliott-Powell, 4 and 3, in the
quarterfinals.
Perrotta claimed a 3 and 2 victory over Rogowicz in
Thursday’s other semifinal.
In Friday’s First Flight final, Ruth Averbeck of Old York
Road Country Club edged Angie Coleman of DuPont Country Club, 2-up.
Coleman reached the final by knocking off Riverton Country
Club’s Laughlin, an 11-time Philadelphia Women’s Amateur champion, 3 and 2.
Averbeck earned a 4 and 3 victory over Bala Golf Club’s Callie Jean Burns in
her semifinal match.
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