Evanko the medalist at Bluestone in qualifier for U.S. Women's Mid-Am next month at Stonewall's North Course

 

   It’s just 25 days until the 36^th U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship tees off at the North Course at Stonewall …

   If Kate Evanko is going to the trouble of trying to qualify for a USGA event, she wants to make sure it’s being held close enough to home that her friends and family can come out and watch her play.

   When the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship was held at Rolling Green Golf Club in Springfield, Delaware County in 2016, Evanko, who starred scholastically at Unionville and collegiately at Georgetown, earned a spot in the field.

   With the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship being played this year at the North Course at Stonewall in the northwest reaches of Chester County, Evanko had to give it a shot.

   Not only did Evanko punch her ticket to the “Udder Course” at Stonewall in a Golf Association of Philadelphia-administered qualifier at Bluestone Country Club in Whitpain Township, Montgomery County Tuesday, but she was the medalist with a solid 3-over-par 74.

   The U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Stonewall’s North Course tees off with the opening round of qualifying for match play Sept. 9^th.

   Evanko headed a solid list of six players who earned a spot in the field at Stonewall, several of whom will bring some past U.S. Mid-Am experience to the North Course, the younger of Tom Doak’s twin gems where East Nantmeal Township meets Warwick Township near Elverson.

   Evanko made birdies at Bluestone’s 475-yard, par-5 fourth hole, the 328-yard, par-4 10^th and the 360-yard, par-4 14^th in getting it around the 6,028-yard, par-71 layout in 3-over.

   Three players finished a shot behind Evanko in a tie for second place at 4-over 75, led by Allison Wix, a four-time PIAA Class AAA qualifier when she was known at Allison Cooper at Central Dauphin.

   Wix, who captured the Pennsylvania Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship last week at Sunnehanna Country Club in Johnstown, teed it up in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am a year ago at Fiddlesticks Country Club’s Long Mean Course in Fort Myers, Fla. and earned a spot in the match-play bracket before falling in the opening round.

   Wix will have some familiarity with Stonewall’s North Course as she punched her ticket to Fiddlesticks in a GAP-administered local qualifier at the site of this year’s championship. I was looping in Wix’s group at the North that day and came away impressed with her game and her demeanor. She’s a player.

   Also in the group at 4-over at Bluestone was the runnerup to Wix in last week’s state Mid-Am at Sunnehanna, Katrin Wolfe, the field staff representative for the Mid-Atlantic region of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.

   Wolfe was right at home at Sunnehanna as she starred scholastically at Westmont-Hilltop before a standout college career at Penn State.

   Rounding out the trio at 4-over was Kristina Ortiz, the Assistant Director of Athletics for Compliance & Student Welfare at Georgian Court in Lakewood, N.J. Ortiz was a college standout at Division II Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.

   Merion Golf Club’s Catherine Elliott and Katie Miller, a three-time Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur and three-time Pennsylvania Women’s Mid-Amateur champion, bested Libbie Warner, who starred collegiately at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., in a playoff for the final two spots in the field at Stonewall after they each posted a 5-over 76.

   It is the fifth trip to the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am for Elliott, who starred scholastically at the Academy of Notre Dame and helped Penn win the Ivy League championship in 2010.

   Elliott earned a spot in the match-play bracket and won a match in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am in 2019 at Forest Highland Golf Club’s Meadow Course in Flagstaff, Ariz.

   Miller was a three-time PIAA champion and a rival of Wolfe’s back in the day and was an all-Atlantic Coast Conference performer at North Carolina.

   Miller fell to former Penn State standout Jackie Rogowicz in a second-round match a year ago at Fiddlesticks. Miller was a co-medalist in qualifying in the 2017 U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at Champions Golf Club Cypress Creek Course in Houston.

   Miller reached the quarterfinals in 2019 at Forest Highland before falling to four-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Am champion Meghan Stasi.

   Last year Miller was playing in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am as a mother for the first time. She and Devin Gee, the head pro at Oakmont Country Club, had their first child in 2021.

   After winning three straight Pennsylvania Mid-Amateur crowns, Miller teed it up in the 54-hole Amateur division against the young kids last week at Sunnehanna and more than held her own, finishing in seventh place. Preparing for Tuesday’s qualifier at Bluestone might have been what Miller had in mind in taking on the challenge of the Amateur division last week.

   Evanko, Rogowicz and Isabella DiLisio, part of what I consider the golden age of girls golf in District One a decade or so ago, will all be in the field at Stonewall.

   Rogowicz, who earned a spot in the match-play bracket in last week’s U.S. Women’s Amateur at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, was exempt from qualifying by reaching the round of 16 a year ago at Fiddlesticks.

   DiLisio, the PIAA Class AAA champion in 2013 as a junior at Mount St. Joseph, reached the semifinals a year ago at Fiddlesticks to earn an exemption into this year’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Am. DiLisio also gained some familiarity with the North Course layout when she earned medalist honors in the local qualifier a year ago to punch her ticket to Fiddlesticks.