DiLisio, 10 years removed from a state title, arrives at Stonewall's North Course as a contender in U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur

 

   WARWICK TOWNSHIP – Hard to believe it’s been 10 years since I stood only a few yards behind Mount St. Joseph junior Isabella DiLisio and watched her just bury a 25-foot putt for eagle on the final hole at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County to take the PIAA Class AAA Championship.

   When the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship tees off at Stonewall’s North Course with the opening round of qualifying for match play Saturday, DiLisio, a semifinalist as a mid-am “rookie” a year ago at Fiddlesticks Country Club’s Long Mean Course in Fort Myers, Fla., will be one of the contenders to add a USGA championship to the state title she won a decade ago.

   I was at Heritage Hills that day covering the state tournament in my previous life as a sportswriter at the Delaware County Daily Times. I was chatting with Radnor’s Brynn Walker, who finished in fifth place that day and came back to capture the next two PIAA Class AAA crowns at Heritage Hills and plays professionally these days on the Epson Tour.

   It is completely unsurprising that 10 years later DiLisio, who went on to have an outstanding college career at Notre Dame, would be competitive nationally as a mid-am.

   Equally unsurprising is that three other players who finished among the top seven in Pennsylvania that day, runnerup Jackie Rogowicz of Pennsbury, third-place finisher Erica Herr of Council Rock North and Allison Wix, then Allison Cooper, of Central Dauphin who finished seventh, would also be in the field for a U.S. Women’s Mid-Am.

   Now, if you had told me 10 years ago that I would have a bag in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am as a Stonewall looper in good standing, that one I might have had a hard time believing. But I will have Tara Joy-Connelly’s name on the back of a USGA caddie bib come Saturday and, maybe even more surprising, I might even be able to help the veteran mid-am negotiate the younger of Tom Doak’s twin gems in the northwest corner of Chester County, the “Udder Course” on a property that was once a dairy farm.

   DiLisio’s road to the semifinals at Fiddlesticks a year ago actually began on that same North Course at Stonewall as the Golf Association of Philadelphia administered the local qualifier for last year’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Am and DiLisio claimed medalist honors with a 5-over-par 75.

   Some rainy weather on Florida’s west coast forced DiLisio to play both her quarterfinal and semifinal matches on the same day at Fiddlesticks.

   DiLisio pulled out a 2-up victory over another native Pennsylvanian, Kate Scarpetta, in the quarterfinals before suffering a 1-up setback at the hands of Aliea Clark, who played collegiately at UCLA and was pursuing advanced degrees in business and film at NYU.

   Clark fell in the final for the second year in a row, this time a 2 and 1 decision to Krissy Carman, a Eugene, Ore. resident who recently accepted a position as an assistant coach with the Oregon women’s golf team.

   Carman, the mother of a then 2-year-old toddler, became the first mom to win a U.S. Women’s Mid-Am title.

   Rogowicz, who was a four-year standout at Penn State, made it to the round of 16 a year ago at Fiddlesticks before suffering a tough 1-up setback at the hands of former Michigan State standout Jacqueline Setas of East Lansing, Mich.

   Rogowicz was one of the few mid-ams to earn a spot in the match-play bracket in last month’s U.S. Women’s Amateur at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles. Surviving a playoff among 10 players for the final nine spots in match play, Rogowicz dropped a 7 and 6 verdict in the opening round to the eventual champion Megan Schofill, a fifth-year player at Auburn from Monticello, Fla.

   Herr was probably the best of that group of scholastic standouts at Heritage Hills 10 years ago. She was bidding for a third straight PIAA Class AAA crown that day and took a one-shot lead to the 18^th tee. But DiLisio’s eagle putt denied Herr that third straight title and Herr ended up falling back to third place behind Rogowicz.

   Herr was a teammate of Jennifer Kupcho’s on some pretty strong Wake Forest teams that were decimated by injuries, including one to Herr. I hadn’t seen or heard much from her until she qualified for the 2021 U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at the Berkeley Hall Club’s North Course in Bluffton, S.C, where she finished a shot out of a playoff for the final spots in the match-play bracket.

   Herr advanced out of one of the last U.S. Women’s Mid-Am qualifiers with a 76 at Spring Brook Country Club in Morristown, N.J.

   Wix was a four-time PIAA Class AAA qualifier at Central Dauphin and she finished a shot behind DiLisio in the GAP-administered U.S. Women’s Mid-Am qualifier at Stonewall’s North Course a year ago. I was looping for two other women in her group that day while she had brother Tim on the bag.

   I was impressed by Wix’s steady game that day and wasn’t surprised in the least when she reached the match-play bracket at Fiddlesticks before falling by a 4 and 2 count to Heather Wall of Lakeland, Fla. in the opening round.

   Wix, who captured the Pennsylvania Women’s Mid-Am crown at Sunnehanna Golf Club in Johnstown last month, earned a return trip to the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am out of a GAP-administered qualifier at Bluestone Country Club in Whitpain Township.

   A couple of U.S. Mid-Am veterans, Merion Golf Club’s Catherine Elliott and Katie Miller, a three-time Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur champion and the wife of Oakmont Country Club head pro Devin Gee, also emerged from the qualifier at Bluestone.

   Elliott, who starred scholastically at the Academy of Notre Dame and collegiately at Penn, will be playing in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am for a fifth time.

   Miller has been a regular in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am and was a co-medalist in qualifying in the 2017 edition, which was moved to Champions Golf Club in Houston after the intended site, Quail Creek Country Club in Naples, Fla., took a major hit from Hurricane Irma.

   Miller reached the match-play bracket a year ago at Fiddlesticks before being knocked out by Rogowicz, who claimed a 5 and 4 decision over the new mother in a second-round meeting of two of Pennsylvania’s top women amateur players.

   The medalist at Bluestone was Kate Evanko, a contemporary of the trio of DiLisio, Rogowicz and Herr in District One with Unionville before a solid college career at Georgetown.

   I guess you could get away with not calling Meghan Stasi a local player since she’s been in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. for a couple of decades now. But the pride of Tavistock Country Club came home this summer to win the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship for a 10^th time at Sandy Run Country Club.

   A four-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion, Stasi will arrive at Stonewall after spending some time at the Old Course at St. Andrews, taking notes from U.S. captain Mike McCoy at the Walker Cup Match. Stasi will be the captain of the U.S. Curtis Cup team that will take on Great Britain & Ireland at Sunningdale Golf Club in England next year.

   St. Andrews would be a special place for any golfer, but it holds extra meaning for Stasi as the famous Swilcan Bridge on the 18^th hole is where her husband Danny Stasi, owner/chef of Shuck n Dive, a cajun restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, asked for her hand in marriage while his future wife was playing for the U.S. team in the 2008 Curtis Cup Match. You can’t make this stuff up.

   I’ll refer you to the Jan. 15^th post I did when Stasi was appointed the U.S. Curtis Cup captain for 2024 for a lot more on Stasi’s story. But she said at the time that spending time with the youngsters on the U.S. Curtis Cup team at Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire, Wales in 2021 and at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course last summer had reignited her passion for the game that has been such a big part of her life.

   In other words, look out.

   This will be the third time I will caddy in a USGA event. It was 35 years between the time I looped for Jay Cudd, a talented assistant pro at Scioto Country Club, in the 1981 U.S. Open at Merion, and my assignment with Michael Mitani of Irvine, Calif. in the 2016 U.S. Mid-Am at Stonewall.

   Cudd failed to make the cut at Merion and Mitani did not make it into match play seven years ago, but they are among my most cherished golf memories. Can’t wait to make a few more golf memories with Joy-Connelly this week.

   As recently as 2021, Joy-Connelly reached the round of 16 before falling, 1-up, to 2018 champion Shannon Johnson of North Easton, Mass.

   Stonewall’s cow logo has become pretty iconic in golf circles. The Old Course, one of Doak’s early successes, has become a bucket list course for a lot of golfers, particularly in our part of the world.

   The North came 10 years later and was quickly dubbed the “Udder Course,” by many of the Stonewall partners, complete with merch. Both courses are always in championship condition, courtesy of superintendent Dan Dale and his hard-working crew.

   Some people seemed surprised that the USGA was staging a national championship at the North Course and only at the North Course. But when the USGA used the North for the first 18 holes of the scheduled 36-hole final between eventual winner Stewart Hagestad and Scott Harvey in the 2016 U.S. Mid-Am, you got the feeling that the governing body of golf in this country held the North in pretty high regard.

   I do most of my looping at the Old Course, which is mostly a walking-only course. But I’ve been around the North enough to appreciate it. The Old Course has more subtle breaks on its tricky green complexes. I’m told some of the old guard in amateur golf in the Philadelphia area had some input in the green complexes on the Old Course.

   The North, with more of Doak’s influence, has green complexes that are more, well, complex. There are dips and moguls and all kinds of fun stuff. There will be some moaning and groaning about some pin placements.

   The USGA website lists the yardage at 5,920 yards and a par of 71. Sounds like the long par-4 seventh hole will be played as a fourth par-5 for the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am.

   That would make it pretty close to the distance on a hybrid card (a combination of blue, white and green tees) that I just discovered last winter of 5,872 yards. Makes me think somebody hasn’t watched these ladies hit the ball lately. A shorter North might actually work a little against some of the longer hitters, but we’ll see.

   When I reached out to Joy-Connelly earlier this week, I recounted being in a group with one Lee Lykens of Indiana, Pa. in the Super-Senior division of the Pennsylvania Senior Amateur Championship in the pandemic summer of 2020.

   Playing mostly from the green ladies tees – about 5,600 yards – Lykens, at 74, shot his age and then some with a remarkable 66. Point being, I told Joy-Connelly, you can get a decent number on the North.

   I heard the pace of the greens had quickened considerably last weekend. It’s almost time. There’s nothing quite like a USGA championship and it all starts in just three days, right here in Chester County.