Amanda Doherty, a senior from Brookhaven, Ga., was the
veteran among a group of talented youngsters at Florida State when she finished
fourth in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship last spring, helping the
Seminoles finish as the runnerup in the team standings behind Wake Forest.
Florida State finished ahead of eventual national champion
Duke at the ACC Championship and did it again when it was the runnerup to
Vanderbilt in the team chase at the NCAA Auburn Regional, five shots ahead of
the Blue Devils. Doherty again led the way, finishing in a tie for sixth place.
The Seminoles finally ran out of gas in the NCAA
Championship at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark., failing to make
it into match play while their ACC rivals, Duke and Wake Forest, made it to the
Final Match, the Blue Devils defeating the Demon Deacons for the title.
You could see the spring run coming for Doherty and Florida
State when she captured The Sally, the South Atlantic Amateur Championship, a
year ago. Well, Saturday at Oceanside Country Club in Ormond Beach, Fla., the
home of the tradition-rich stop on the unofficial Orange Blossom Tour, Doherty
did it again.
Doherty made up a four-shot deficit to South Florida teen
phenom Alexa Pano with a sparkling 1-under-par 71, the best round of the day in
winds gusting up to 30 mph, that gave her a four-shot victory and a second
straight Sally title.
Pano, a 15-year-old from Lake Worth, Fla. and No. 22 in the
Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), looked like she was going to be
tough to catch. She had opened with a 4-under 68, one shot better than
Doherty’s opening-round 69, and added a 1-under 71 and an even-par 72 to open
up a four-shot lead over Doherty.
Doherty fell back a little with a 3-over 75 in the second
round before bouncing back with a 1-under 71 in Friday’s third round. Her
1-under 71 in Saturday’s final round gave her a 2-under 286 total as she was
the only player to finish under par for four rounds.
Pano, meanwhile, struggled in the final round with a 79, but
still held onto second place with a 2-over 290. It’s the second straight year
Pano has finished as the runnerup at Oceanside to Doherty, who fired a 3-under
69 in the final round to overtake Pano a year ago.
Doherty’s senior season at Florida State got a little
tougher in the midseason break as Frida Kinhult, a Swede who was ranked in the
top five in the Women’s WAGR, decided to turn pro midway through her sophomore
season.
But the Seminoles still have another sophomore Swede,
Beatrice Wallin, who will return to Tallahassee for the spring portion of the
college season. And they still have a certain two-time winner of The Sally back
in the lineup, a veteran of a lot of college battles, in the lineup and Amanda
Doherty’s presence counts for a lot.
By finishing second, Pano did beat the 2018 winner of The
Sally, Wake Forest junior Emilia Migliaccio of Cary, N.C. and No. 7 in the
Women’s WAGR by five shots. Migliaccio grabbed the opening-round lead Wednesday
with a sizzling 5-under 67, the best round surrendered by the Oceanside layout
in The Sally.
Migliaccio, who won the ACC individual title and played a
big part in the bringing the Demon Deacons to the brink of a national
championship last spring, struggled in the second round with a 77 and trailed
Pano by six shots after bouncing back with a 1-over 73 in the third round.
Migliaccio, however, never recovered from a triple bogey on
the first hole and closed with a 6-over 78 in Saturday’s final round to finish
alone in third place at 7-over 295.
Migliaccio and Pano were among the 12 players invited to a
practice session last month at Loblolly in Hobe Sound, Fla. as candidates for
the U.S. Curtis Cup team which will travel across the pond to take on Great
Britain & Ireland at The Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire, Wales
beginning June 12.
Migliaccio represented the United States quite ably last
summer when she won the gold medal in individual women’s competition in the
Pan-American Games in Lima, Peru. Oh yeah, and she won another gold, teaming
with Rose Zhang, another Curtis Cup candidate, Stewart Hagestad, winner of the
2016 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship at Stonewall, and Brandon Wu, who helped
Stanford capture the NCAA men’s crown last spring, to win the mixed team
competition.
At No. 7, Migliaccio is the highest-rated American in the
Women’s WAGR, which will probably make her an automatic pick for the U.S.
Curtis Cup team. The top three Americans in the Women’s WAGR as of April 8 will
make captain Sarah Ingram’s team.
Pano has taken advantage of the competitive opportunities
the Orange Blossom Tour presents for several years now. But those opportunities
might be even more important to her this year since Pano won’t have as many
chances to impress Captain Ingram as the top collegiate U.S. Curtis Cup
candidates will.
A lot of the college players will be headed back to campus
this week. I’m guessing Pano will defend her title in the next stop on the
Orange Blossom Tour, the Ione D. Jones/Doherty Women’s Amateur, a match-play
event which tees off with qualifying Monday at Coral Ridge Country Club in Fort Lauderdale.
Pano has mentioned in the past how few opportunities there
are for junior players to get some match-play experience, one of the reasons
she likes to play in the Jones/Doherty. She’s hoping that match-play experience
will come in handy this spring in Wales.
The second-best round of the day in Saturday’s final round
was the even-par 72 turned in by another teen phenom, Paris Hilinksi, the
California Kid from La Quinta who teed it up in the U.S. Women’s Open at the
Country Club of Charleston and made it into the match-play bracket in the U.S.
Women’s Amateur at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Miss. as a 16-year-old
in 2019.
Hilinski’s solid showing in the final round enabled her to
finish alone in fourth place, a shot behind Migliaccio at 8-over 296.
Speaking of phenoms, Canadian Michelle Liu, who teed it up
in the LPGA Tour’s Canadian Pacific Women’s Open last summer as a 12-year-old,
was one of four players who finished in a tie for fifth place at 12-over 300,
four shots behind Hilinski.
Liu’s best round was a 1-under 71 in Wednesday’s first round
and she closed with a 5-over 77.
Also in that group was Bailey Shoemaker of West Edmeston,
N.Y., who won her third straight New York State Girls’ Junior Championship at
age 14 last summer. The kid fired a 2-under 70 in Thursday’s second round and
matched par in third round with a 72 before struggling to a 79 in the final
round Saturday.
Therese Warner of Kennewick, Wash., coming off a solid fall
campaign as a freshman at Arizona, also landed among the group at 300. Warner
moved up the leaderboard with a 2-under 70 in Friday’s third round before
closing with a 79.
Rounding out the quartet tied for fifth place was Kaitlyn
Schroeder, the reigning Florida State Golf Association Junior Girls champion
from Jacksonville. Schroeder was steady all week, opening with a pair of 74s
and adding a 5-over 77 in Friday’s third round before closing with a solid
3-over 75 in Saturday’s tough conditions.
Another teen phenom from California, Amari Avery of
Riverside, shared ninth place with Tsai-Ching Tseng at 13-over 301.
Avery teamed with Pano to reach the semifinals of the U.S.
Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship last spring at Timuquana Country Club in
Jacksonville and won the California Women’s Amateur Championship last summer at
age 15.
Avery’s best round was a 1-under 71 in Friday’s third round
before she closed with a 78.
Pretty sure Tseng is the Tulsa sophomore from Taiwan who appears
on the Hurricane roster as Lorena Tseng and earned an individual bid to the
NCAA Norman Regional as a freshman last spring. Tseng also finished up with a
78.
Gianna Clemente, the Warren, Ohio phenom who became the
third youngest player to tee it up in a U.S. Women’s Amateur as an 11-year-old
last summer, finished alone in 28th place at 20-over 308 after a
final-round 77.
Clemente finished in a tie for fifth in last summer’s
Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ Championship at Hershey Country Club’s East Course.
She was playing out of Avalon at Buhl Park in Sharon, just across the
Ohio-Pennsylvania border from Warren.
Penn State’s Sarah Willis, a sophomore out of Eaton, Ohio, took
a trip to Florida for The Sally and finished among the group tied for 34th
place at 313. The best round for Willis was a 3-over 75 in Friday’s third round
before she closed with an 80.
Also playing among all those kids was Merion Golf Club’s Liz
Haines, the 70-something who was the runnerup in the 2004 U.S. Women’s Senior
Amateur Championship.
Haines’ best round was the 83 she posted in the first round
and she closed with a 90 to finish in the group tied for 83rd place
at 343. Still competing, though, which is pretty impressive all by itself.
In the aftermath of last week’s Harder Hall Invitational,
there were some rumblings that that venerable stop on the Orange Blossom Tour might
not continue, although there is still some hope.
The Sally went to great pains to make sure its event remains
strong, locking in this week on the calendar to make sure it can lure some of
the top college players before the spring semester starts up. There were also
Women’s WAGR points up for grabs at The Sally.
The event certainly drew a top-notch field to Ormond Beach
last week and none were better than Doherty.
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