Grimes wins PGA Women's Stroke Play, punches ticket to KPMG PGA Women's Championship at Aronimink

   Lisa Grimes is the latest addition to the list of players who will tee it up in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, which gets under way June 25 at Aronimink Golf Club, the Donald Ross classic in Delaware County’s Newtown Township.

   Grandma Grimes, that is. That’s right, the 59-year-old Director of Instruction at Alexandria Golf Club in Alexandria Minn. is a grandmother of five and still playing some pretty good golf.

   It seemed to come out nowhere when the PGA of America took over what had been the LPGA Championship, one of women’s golf’s oldest major professional championships. From 1994 to 2004 it was called the McDonald’s LPGA Championship and a lot of us in the Philadelphia area miss the days when the best players in women’s golf descended on DuPont Country Club near Wilmington, Del. each spring.

   The one big thing that the PGA of America added to the championship was an avenue to a major professional championship for the hardest-working people in golf, the club pro, in much the same way that the PGA Professional Championship annually provides 20 tickets for club pros to the PGA Championship.

   For the second time in three years, Grimes captured the PGA Women’s Stroke Play Championship, which wrapped up Tuesday at the PGA Golf Club’s Ryder Course in Port St. Lucie, Fla. The PGA Women’s Stroke Play is one of the events that comprise the 2020 PGA Winter Championships, presented by GolfPass and PrimeSport.

   Only the winner of the Women’s Stroke Play Championship gets a ticket to the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. But eight other club pros earned their way to Aronimink in last summer’s LPGA Teaching & Club Professionals National Championship, which was staged at the Pinehurst Resort’s No. 8 Course in Pinehurst Village, N.C. More on that group later.

   Grimes closed with a solid 1-under-par 71 at the Ryder Course in Tuesday’s final round to claim the top prize of $2,100 with a 4-under 212 total.

   She held off a hard-charging Sherry Andonian of Centennial, Colo., who had the best round of the tournament with a 5-under 67 that left her a shot behind Grimes at 3-under 213. At 57, Andonian is no kid either. Grimes had opened with an even-par 72 Sunday on the Ryder Course and added a 3-under 69 in Monday’s second round at the Wanamker Course to take a one-shot lead over Jenny Suh of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. heading into the final round.

   “At my age, any win is great,” Grimes told Craig Dolch, reporting for the PGA of America website. “I don’t care if it’s a one-day pro-am or something like this. It’s always nice to win. But I don’t think about age. It’s not a factor to me.”

   The reality is there are a ton of players 50 and older out there playing terrific golf. Global Golf Post, the weekly digital golf magazine, named Lara Tennant, who captured the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship for the second straight time last summer at Cedar Rapids Country Club in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, its female Amateur of the Year for 2019.

   The 52-year-old Tennant played college golf at Arizona and then had six children in five years, including a set of twins. She played very little competitive golf for a long time, but with a chance to compete as a senior, with the kids raised, she rediscovered her passion for the game, her passion for competing.

   Something tells me, Grimes never lost that. She told Dolch she’s competed in about 20 major championships.

   When the USGA finally staged its first U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, Ill. two summers ago, there was Grimes right in the middle of all those former LPGA stars, finishing in a tie for 23^rd place at 13-over 205. She missed the cut by a shot in last summer’s U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Pine Needles Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C.

   Grimes earned a spot in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Kemper Lakes Golf Club in suburban Chicago with her victory in the Women’s Stroke Play Championship in 2018. Grimes had rounds of 81 and 78 at a tough Kemper Lakes layout, her 159 total missing the cut, which fell at 147.

   Overbrook Golf Club assistant pro Ashley Grier, the most talented female club pro in the Philadelphia Section PGA, had a strong showing this week at the PGA Golf Club, closing with a one-under 71 to share third place with Suh at 1-under 215. It was the fourth time Grier has posted a top-five finish in the PGA Women’s Stroke Play.

   Grier had opened with a 1-under 71 at the Ryder Course and added a 1-over 73 at the Wanamaker Course before closing with that 71 back at the Ryder Course.

   Suh led Grimes by two shots with her opening-round 70, but fell a shot behind the eventual winner when Suh matched par in the second with a 72 at the Wanamaker Course. Suh closed with a 1-over 73 to join Grier in the tie for third at 215.

   It looks like a win in the Women’s Stroke Play Championship was the last shot to get into the KPMG Women’s PGA for Grier, which is a shame because Overbrook is less than five miles away from Aronimink. Grier was not among the top eight finishers last summer in the LPGA T&CP Championship at Pinehurst.

   Grier was in the field for last year’s KPMG Women’s PGA at Hazeltine National Golf in Chaska, Minn. and missed the cut with rounds of 82 and 81 for a 163 total. The cut fell at 150. Grier also made it to the KPMG Women’s PGA two years ago at Kemper Lakes and missed the cut with rounds of 83 and 77 for a 160 total.

   Finishing fifth in this week’s PGA Women’s Stroke Play Championship in Port St. Lucie was defending champion Joanna Coe, a Mays Landing, N.J. native who is an instructor at Baltimore Country Club. Coe sandwiched a 1-over 73 at the Wanamaker Course with a pair of even-par 72s at the Ryder Course for a 1-over 217 total that left her two shots behind Grier and Suh.

   Coe, an NCAA Division II champion at Rollins who played several years on the Symetra Tour, will tee it up at Aronimink in the KPMG PGA Women’s this summer. Coe finished among the top eight in last summer’s LPGA T&CP National Championship at Pinehurst and will be appearing in the KPMG Women’s PGA for the third straight year.

   Coe missed the cut with rounds of 77 and 78 for a 155 total two years ago at Kemper Lakes. She was a little closer to the cut line last summer at Hazeltine, bouncing back from an opening-round 81 with a solid 73 for a 154 total.

   I looped for Coe in a one-day Pro-Partner at Stonewall late in 2017. First time she laid eyes on the Old Course and shot a 3-over 73 that could easily have been even-par. The girl’s got game.

   The winner of the LPGA T&CP National Championship at Pinehurst was Stephanie Connelly Eiswerth of Fleming Island, Fla, who is an assistant coach for the North Florida women’s team. Eiswerth closed with a 71 to capture the title for the second straight year with a 5-over total.

   An interesting name popped up with a fourth-place finish in the LPGA T&CP National Championship that punched her ticket to the KPMG PGA Women’s this summer at Aronimink. That would be former Penn State standout Ellen Ceresko, a three-time PIAA qualifier as a high school star at North Pocono who finished with a 10-over total at Pinehurst No. 8.

   Ceresko is listing Naples, Fla. as her residence these days. She teamed with Brynn Walker, the two-time state champion at Radnor who is in her senior season at North Carolina, and Aurora Kan, the 2010 PIAA champion at Chichester who was a collegiate standout at Purdue, on the Pennsylvania team that finished third in the 2015 USGA State Women’s Team Championship at Dalhousie Golf Club in Cape Girardeau, Mo.

   Ceresko and Kan had completed their college careers in the spring before the USGA State Women’s Team Championship, an event that was sadly discontinued, and Walker was in the fall of her senior year at Radnor.

   By the way, Overbrook’s Grier and Coe made a little history in last spring’s PGA Professional Championship at Belfair in Bluffton, S.C. when they became the first women to play four rounds in the event once known as the National Club Pro.

   Grier finished in a tie for 71^st place with a 10-over 297 total and Coe landed in the group tied for 51^st place at 7-over 294.

   Grier did not have a high enough finish in the Philadelphia PGA Professional Championship last fall at the Union League Golf Club at Torresdale and Riverton Country Club to earn a return trip to the PGA Professional Championship, which will be held in April at the Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin,  Texas.