LSU finished the fall portion of the 2019-2020 season
strong, taking second place in the Battle of the Beach in San Jose Del Cabo,
Mexico, a showing that enabled the Tigers to rise to No. 16 in the Golfstat rankings
heading into the annual midseason pause.
If the results of this weekend’s Harder Hall Invitational,
one of the stops on the unofficial Orange Blossom Tour in Florida, are any
indication, LSU will be a team to keep an eye on when the 2019-’20 season gears
up again next month. The 65th edition of the Harder Hall in Sebring,
Fla. wrapped up Sunday.
LSU’s standout freshman, Latanna Stone of Riverview, Fla.,
chased down teammate Alden Wallace, a sophomore from Shreveport, La., to claim
a four-shot victory over a Harder Hall Golf Club that played increasingly tougher
as the temperatures fell and the winds freshened Saturday and Sunday.
Wallace was four shots clear of the next closest pursuer,
third-place finisher Kendall Griffin, a Sebring home girl who has been playing
in the Harder Hall since she was 10-years old. Want to guess where Griffin, a
junior, plays college golf? Think purple and gold. Think Baton Rouge. That’s
right, Griffin made it a 1-2-3 finish for LSU in the Harder Hall.
Stone was quite the phenom, becoming the youngest player to
tee it up in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship when she qualified in 2012
as a 10-year-old. The equally precocious Lucy Li was a month younger when she
earned a trip to the U.S. Women’s Amateur the following year, but you get the
picture, Stone got good fast and stayed that way.
Stone made the U.S. Women’s Amateur field again in 2014 and
earned a berth in match play in the 2017 U.S. Women’s Amateur at San Diego
Country Club in her third appearance.
Stone closed out her first fall of college golf in style, finishing
in a tie for second in the individual chase in the Battle of the Beach with a
sparkling 7-under 209 total over the San Jose Club Campestre layout.
Like Griffin, Stone has played in the Harder Hall a lot over
the years. She displayed her mastery of the course by rattling off three
consecutive even-par 72s to take a three-shot lead over Wallace heading into Sunday’s
final round. Wallace fired the low round of the week, a 2-under 70, in
difficult conditions in Saturday’s third round to surge into contention.
Stone struggled early in the final round, enabling Wallace
to take a one-shot lead to the back nine, an advantage she stretched to two
shots with a birdie at the 11th hole.
But Stone righted the ship on the incoming nine, making birdies
at the 13th, 15th and 16th holes. The birdie
at the 16th hole, combined with a Wallace bogey, turned a one-shot
deficit into a one-shot lead for Stone. A bogey-double bogey finish by Wallace
accounted for the deceptive four-shot margin of victory for Stone.
Stone’s back-nine rally gave her a final round of 3-over 75 –
a couple of 2-over 74s by players back in the pack were the best scores on the chilly,
windy day -- and a 3-over 291 total. Wallace ended up with a 4-over 76 to earn
runnerup honors with a 7-over 295 total.
Griffin had her worst round of the weekend, a 6-over 78, to
finish alone in third place with an 11-over 299. Griffin and future LSU
teammate Kathleen Gallagher reached the semifinals of the 2017 U.S. Women’s
Amateur Four-Ball Championship at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club in Myrtle
Beach, S.C.
LSU’s second-year head coach Garrett Runion had to like the
reports he was getting from Sebring. The Tigers just missed a berth in the
Southeastern Conference Championship’s match-play bracket in ninth place last
spring and did receive a berth in the NCAA East Lansing Regional, but failed to
advance to the NCAA Championship.
But getting to this spring’s NCAA Championship at Grayhawk
Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. would seem to be a goal very much in LSU’s
reach.
The Harder Hall has become an event that often draws college
kids trying to keep their competitive edge during the midseason break as well
as junior standouts, many from talent-rich South Florida, and mid-amateurs who have
been coming to Sebring for years.
Finishing a shot behind Griffin in fourth place was Phu
Khine, who captured the Colonial Athletic Association individual crown at the
Reserve Club Course at St. James Plantation in Southport, N.C. and led North
Carolina Wilmington to the team title as a freshman last spring.
Khine, a native of Myanmar, matched Stone’s final round of
3-over 75 to finish up at 12-over 300.
The trio that landed in a tie for fifth place at 13-over
301, a shot behind Khine, included Jenny Bae, a sophomore at Georgia from
Suwanee, Ga., Kennedy Pedigo, a junior at SMU from Fort Worth, Texas, and Izzy
Pellot, a high school sophomore from Altamonte Springs, Fla.
Bae closed with a 5-over 77, Pedigo posted a final-round 78
and Pellot finished up with an 80.
Valentina Albertuzzi, a freshman at Division II power Nova
Southeastern from Spain, finished alone in eighth place at 18-over 306, five
shots behind the trio tied for fifth place. Albertuzzi had a strong finish,
carding a 3-over 75 in Sunday’s final round.
Chloe Kovelsky, another hotshot South Florida junior player
from Boca Raton, also finished strong, posting a 2-over 74 in Saturday’s third
round and a 3-over 75 in Sunday’s final round to end up alone in ninth place at
307, a shot behind Albertuzzi.
South Jersey native and four-time winner of the U.S.
Mid-Amateur Championship Meghan Stasi is never afraid to mix it up with kids on
the Orange Blossom Tour. Stasi, an eight-time winner of the Women’s Golf
Association of Philadelphia Match-Play Championship who calls the Fort
Lauderdale area home these days, carded a solid 5-over 77 in the final round to
get a share of 10th place with Julia Goodson, a senior with the
powerhouse Kent State program, at 22-over 310.
Goodson of Hudson, Ohio finished up with a solid 3-over 75.
Speaking of phenoms, Gianna Clemente of Warren, Ohio
finished alone in 14th place at 312 after a final-round 79. Clemente
became the third youngest player, behind Li and Stone, to qualify for the U.S.
Women’s Amateur when she punched her ticket to Old Waverly Golf Club in West
Point, Miss. last summer at age 11.
Clemente also finished in a tie for fifth place in the
Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ Championship at Hershey Country Club’s East Course
last summer. Clemente was playing out of Avalon at Buhl Park in Sharon, just
across the Ohio-Pennsylvania border from Warren.
Mary Jane Hiestand, one of South Florida’s top senior
amateurs, was the runaway winner of the Forever Forty-Nine Division. Hiestand
made a remarkable run, at age 58, to the final of the 2017 U.S. Women’s
Mid-Amateur Championship at Champions Golf Club’s Cypress Course in Houston.
Hiestand broke 80 all four days in the challenging
conditions at Harder Hall. After opening with a 77, she carded a solid 3-over
75 before adding a second 77 in the third round and finishing up with a 78 for
a 19-over 307 total.
Sarah Phillips-Durst of Tallahassee, Fla. finished 11 shots
behind Hiestand in second place at 318 after a final-round 84.
Merion Golf Club’s ageless Liz Haines – she’s in her early
70s – finished in a tie for 13th place at 346 after struggling to a
final-round 89. But Haines, the runnerup in the 2004 U.S. Senior Women’s
Amateur Championship, opened with a pair of solid 83s in the first two rounds.
Allyson Duan captured top honors in the Ben Roman Division’s
Marge Burns Flight – Duan’s photo on the Harder Hall website would seem to
indicate that the flight is for junior players – by 10 shots with a 242 total
for 54 holes. Duan closed with an 81.
Becky Krakowski was the runnerup after finishing with a
solid 78 for a 252 total.
Gail Brown was the winner of the Ben Roman Division’s Tish
Preuss Flight as her final-round 87 gave her a 273 total that was three shots
clear of the field.
Debb Summers and Eadie Moran both closed with a 90 to share
runnerup honors at 276.
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