Whenever I take the ride to the PIAA Championship at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in Springettsbury Township, York County, there is plenty of time to reminisce about the many great high school players I’ve seen there, whether covering them with the Delaware County Daily Times or in my post-newspaper life as a golf blogger since 2016. Some of the girls who were such a big part of what I like to call the golden age of District One girls golf, from the state title won by Kennett’s Christine Shimel in 2008 through the back-to-back crowns claimed by Council Rock North’s Erica Herr in 2011 and 2012 to the back-to-back victories for Radnor’s Brynn Walker in 2014 and 2015, made some golf news in October, a perfect excuse for a blog post.
Caught up with what Brynn Walker was doing right before she teed it up in the U.S. Women’s Amateur for the fifth time in August at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md.
I knew her senior season at North Carolina had been a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic, but I wasn’t sure if she planned to return to Chapel Hill for a fifth season or if she was going to turn pro, which was the original plan. Joe Juliano did a nice piece on Walker in The Philadelphia Inquirer in the week leading up to the U.S. Women’s Amateur and that’s when I found out the two-time PIAA Class AAA champion was indeed going to return to North Carolina for a fifth season.
She had been considering taking that option and when the United States Golf Association told Walker that by reaching the second round of match play in the 2019 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Miss., she was exempt into the 2020 U.S. Women’s Amateur, it pretty much sealed the decision.
The pandemic’s spring of uncertainty has drifted into a fall of uncertainty and North Carolina, which would normally have four or five tournaments under its belt, has yet to play any golf. Walker, however, got a chance to play in one of her favorite events on one of her favorite golf courses at the beginning of the month.
For the third time in the last five years, Walker had a starting time in the ShopRite LPGA Classic, presented by Acer, at The Bay Course of Seaview, the classic shore layout designed by Donald Ross and Hugh Wilson, the guy who conceived the masterpiece that is Merion Golf Club’s East Course, across the bay from Atlantic City in Galloway Township.
Walker has become a blogger herself. Probably read enough of my stories and posts on her and thought, I can write as well as that guy. She did several posts at brynncwalker.com on her experience at the ShopRite, going back to the first year she gave the event’s amateur qualifier a shot in 2014.
The amateur qualifier only awards a spot into the event’s regular Monday qualifier against the pros. In 2016, just before she walked in her Radnor graduation, Walker survived the Monday qualifier and played in her first LPGA event.
And it was an adventure. How about this for a start: Bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey, quadruple bogey, bogey, birdie, birdie, birdie, birdie. Walker shot 80 that day followed by a 75 that featured a birdie-birdie finish.
By 2016, Team Walker had established enough of a relationship with Bill Hansen, Eiger Management Group’s LPGA Coordinator, that he allowed her to skip the amateur qualifier and tee it up in the regular Monday qualifier. It’s still tough to get through against a field of professional golfers vying for two or three spots in the main field.
Walker made it through again in 2019, although it wasn’t until I checked out her blog that I realized she got in by holing a 40-foot par putt on the final hole. She shot 77-76 a year ago over the 6,217-yard, par-71 Bay Course.
The ShopRite LPGA Classic wasn’t played on its usual June dates in this most unusual of years. It was rescheduled once and then rescheduled again. But give the ShopRite people credit. They knew there would be no fans in one of the states hit hardest by the pandemic, but they were determined to have their event.
There would be no qualifiers, but Hansen knew a talented young amateur who was more than deserving of a sponsor’s exemption and Walker gladly accepted the offer.
On the bag for Walker at the ShopRite LPGA Classic was her swing coach, John Dunigan, a Golf Digest Top 50 teacher who is hanging his shingle these days at Applebrook Golf Club. I mentioned in my post from the PIAA Championship this week that Dunigan is the swing coach for Class AAA champion Victoria Kim, a junior at West Chester East. That made it two in a row for Dunigan as he was the swing coach for Wissahickon freshman Elizabeth Beek when she claimed the Class AAA title a year ago.
Walker was a much steadier player at the ShopRite this year than the kid who was just graduating high school four years ago. She had four bogeys and two birdies in an opening round of 2-over 73 and five bogeys and three birdies in another 73 in the second round.
Walker played practice rounds with Lexi Thompson, Brooke Henderson, Christie Kerr, major champions all, and Christina Kim. Her picture was added to Seaview’s Wall of Fame.
Walker’s wrapup of her latest Seaview adventure made for a nice post on her blog. Walker didn’t make the cut, but the experience only made her more determined than ever to pursue her dreams of playing on the LPGA Tour.
Maybe the next time Walker tees it up in the ShopRite LPGA Classic, she’ll do so as a professional golfer.
The week following the ShopRite LPGA Classic, the Pennsylvania Golf Association staged its inaugural Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship, presented by Dick’s Sporting Goods, at West Shore Country Club.
And there standing atop the leaderboard in the Championship Division were two of Walker’s rivals from her scholastic days, Jackie Rogowicz, who won two District One titles and was the runnerup three times in four trips to the PIAA Championship during her high school career at Pennsbury, and Isabella DiLisio, the 2013 PIAA Class AAA champion as a junior at Mount St. Joseph in one of the most dramatic finishes I’ve seen at Heritage Hills.
Rogowicz and DiLisio were fixtures in the respective starting lineups in college, Rogowicz at Penn State and DiLisio at Notre Dame. Their college careers wrapped up in the spring of 2019 and both have remained amateurs. Rogowicz, playing out of Commonwealth National Golf Club, and DiLisio, playing out of Philadelphia Cricket Club, fired a pair of 3-under 69s at West Shore to capture the PAGA Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship by three shots.
Rogowicz and DiLisio went 2-3 behind Herr in the PIAA Championship as freshmen in 2011 and Rogowicz was the runnerup to Herr again in 2012. DiLisio’s spectacular eagle at the 18th hole that denied Herr a third straight state crown with Rogowicz earning a third straight runnerup finish in 2013 remains one of my most enduring memories in 19 years of covering the state championships at Heritage Hills.
Rogowicz and DiLisio teamed up in a Golf Association of Philadelphia-administered-qualifier for next spring’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship this fall at Waynesborough Country Club and are the first alternates after losing in a playoff for the second qualifying berth.
Here’s hoping they get the call to tee it up at the Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas next spring. They would be a tough out if they could get into the match-play bracket at the U.S. Women’s Four-Ball. Speaking of high school state champions,
Katie Miller Gee won three of them in a four-year stretch from 1999 to 2002 at Hempfield Area. After a standout college career at North Carolina, Gee, a three-time Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur champion, has emerged as one of the top mid-amateur players in the country. She regularly qualifies for the match-play bracket in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amatuer Championship.
Gee, playing out of Green Oaks Country Club, teamed up with Laura Hilger of Treesdale Golf & Country Club to earn runerup honors at West Shore. Gee and Hilger shared the lead with Rogowicz and DiLisio after firing an opening round of 3-under 69 before cooling off with an even-par 72 to finish three shots behind the winners at 3-under 141.
It was 16 shots back to the third-place tandem, but I can’t overlook another scholastic great from the past, 1993 PIAA champion Laura Hammond, who was representing Unionville when she captured the state title. Hammond, who rattled off multiple victories in the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship during and after a standout college career at Penn State, is the executive director of WGAP these days.
Playing out of Penn Oaks Golf Club, Hammond and Commonwealth National Golf Club’s Karen Siegel, an assistant coach for the Penn women’s program, added an 80 to their opening-round 77 for a 157 total.
And I have to give a shout-out to one of the enduring figures on the women’s golf scene in the Philadelphia area. Merion Golf Club’s Liz Haines – she’s a 70-something these days – teamed up with Barbara Pagana of Huntsville Golf Club to win the Open Division of the PAGA Women’s Four-Ball Championship at West Shore.
Haines and Pagana opened with a 2-under 70 before adding a 2-over 74 for an even-par 144 total. Haines was 70 when she qualified for the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship three years ago at the Orchid Island Golf & Beach Club in Vero Beach, Fla. She was the runnerup in the 2004 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. Think about that. She was one of the best senior amateur players in the country 16 years ago and she’s still out there competing and winning.
Beth Ward of the Royal Manchester Golf Links and Jennifer Donnelly of the Colonial Golf & Tennis Club finished two shots behind Haines and Pagana. After opening with a 77, Ward and Donnelly fired a 3-under 69 for a 2-over 146 total.
Sandy Cooper of The 1912 Club and Joanne Craft of Aronimink Golf Club and Amy Kennedy of the Country Club of York and Allison Long of Honeybrook Golf Club finished in a tie for third place at 4-over 148. Cooper and Craft added 1-over 73 to their opening-round 75 while Kennedy and Long opened with a 73 before finishing up with a 75.
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