Cox, Quickel team up to punch their ticket to U.S. Women's Amateur Four-Ball Championship

   Emmaus junior Michelle Cox and Padua Academy senior Haley Quickel will be taking their games to a national stage when they tee it up in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship next spring at Quail Creek Country Club in Naples, Fla.

   Cox, the runnerup in this summer’s Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ Championship at Hershey Country Club’s East Course, and Quickel earned a ticket to the U.S. Women’s Four-Ball by firing a better-ball 4-under-par 66 in a Golf Association of Philadelphia-administered qualifier Thursday at Cox’s home course, Lehigh Country Club.

   The 16-year-old Cox, who will be looking to improve on a 13^th-place finish in the PIAA Class AAA Championship in next month’s scholastic postseason, and the 17-year-old Quickel shared medalist honors in the qualifier at Lehigh with a couple of Maryland teens, 16-year-old Faith Choi of Frederick, Md. and 17-year-old Bailey Davis of White Plains, Md.

   The key to the round for Cox and Quickel came at the 359-yard, par-4 15^th hole where a tee shot by Quickel, who will join the James Madison program next summer, found a fairway bunker 121 yards from the hole. With the lip of the trap right in front of her, Quickel gripped down on a 9-iron and watched as her ball finished at the bottom of the cup for a hole-out eagle 2.

   “We were a good team out there,” Cox told the GAP website. “Getting to go down the Florida is going to be a lot of fun. We’ve never played in a (a USGA national championship) yet.”

   Quickel’s remarkable shot wasn’t the only dramatic eagle hole-out of the day. The 4-under 66 recorded by Choi and Davis got a big boost when Davis’ approach from 165 yards away at the 410-yard, par-4 17^th hole with a 6-iron also found the hole for an eagle that capped a remarkable 6-under back nine for the duo.

   This will not be Choi’s first trip to the U.S. Women’s Four-Ball. A year ago she teamed with another Maryland teen star, Aneka Seumanutafa, to earn the only ticket available to this year’s U.S. Women’s Four-Ball in a GAP-administered qualifier held at Kennett Square Golf & Country Club.

   And the pair made quite a splash at Timuquana Country Club, a Donald Ross classic in Jacksonville, Fla. Seumanutafa, fresh from helping Ohio State capture the Big Ten team title, made 10 birdies the first time she looked at the golf course in the opening round of qualifying for match play as the pair registered a U.S. Women’s Four-Ball single-round record with a 12-under 60.

Choi and Seumanutafa, a quarterfinalist in this summer’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Miss., added a 70 in the second round to claim medalist honors before falling in the opening round of match play.

   The first alternate is the formidable mid-amateur team of 2015 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion Lauren Greenlief of Ashburn, Va. and three-time Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur champion Katie Miller of Jeannette.

   Coming off deep runs in this month’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship at Forest Highlands Golf Club in Flagstaff, Ariz., Greenlief and Miller carded a 2-under 68 at Lehigh. The duo qualified for match play in last spring’s U.S. Women’s Four-Ball at Timuquana.

   Greenlief reached the semifinals at Forest Highlands while Miller reached the quarterfinals.

The second alternate was a tandem of Jersey girls, Tiya Chowdary of Belle Mead and Katherine Lu of Plainsboro, who teamed up to post a 1-under 69.

   The qualifier at Lehigh brought together some interesting teams that came up just short of a trip to Quail Creek.

   Two former scholastic rivals, Isabella DiLisio of Hatfield and Jackie Rogowicz of Yardley, matched par with a 70. They finished 1-2, respectively, in the 2013 PIAA Class AAA Championship when they were juniors, DiLisio at Mount St. Joseph and Rogowicz at Pennsbury. They are coming off outstanding four-year college careers, DiLisio at Notre Dame and Rogowicz at Penn State.

   Sydney Yermish, the 13-year-old phenom from Rolling Green Golf Club, and her partner Kaia Wu of Princeton, N.J. also matched par with a 70.

   A couple of Bucks County standouts, Pennsbury junior and Yardley resident Jade Gu, the Class AAA East Regional winner last fall, and George School junior Natasha Kiel of New Hope carded a 2-over 72.

   Episcopal Academy junior Lauren Jones and Haverford High junior Riley Quartermain were another shot behind Gu and Kiel with a 3-over 73. Jones of Merion Golf Club led the Churchwomen to a second straight Inter-Ac League title last spring while Quartermain, a product of the junior program at Llanerch Country Club, was a PIAA Class AAA qualifier last fall.

   Overbrook Golf Club’s Alyssa Roland, who lives and works in New York City, teamed with Callie Kemmer of Washington, D.C. to post a 4-over 74. Roland qualified for match play in the 2017 U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at the Champions Golf Club’s Cypress Creek Course in Houston.