It’s always worth checking in on the Ione D. Jones/Doherty Women’s Amateur Championship at Coral Ridge Country Club in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
For those of us who follow the college scene, there’s usually someone tuning up for the second half of the season, which will get under way in earnest next month.
Or you’ll often find some rising teen-ager who isn’t even in college yet. I’m sure the regulars at Coral Ridge got a huge kick out of seeing native South Floridian Alexa Pano, a three-time winner of the Jones/Doherty as a kid, claim her first LPGA victory on her 19th birthday last summer in an event co-sanctioned by the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour (LET) in Northern Ireland.
It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that Pano won the last of her three Jones/Doherty crowns as a 15-year-old because it wasn’t that long ago, just four years. She lost in the final in one last shot at a fourth title two years ago.
And golf’s bright future was on display again at Coral Ridge as Florida senior Maisie Filler of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. claimed a 4 and 3 victory over Scarlett Schremmer, a 17-year-old from Birmingham, Ala. who is home-schooled, in Friday’s final.
They were the two best players in the 91st renewal of the Jones/Doherty Amateur Championship all week with Schremmer claiming medalist honors in qualifying for match play Monday with a sparkling 3-under 69 and Filler finishing four shots behind Schremmer in second place with a 1-over 73.
But I had a rooting interest in the 38th playing of the Jones/Doherty Senior Women’s Amateur Championship, so I’m going to get back to the young kids later in this post.
As a regular caddy at Stonewall, I drew Tara Joy-Connelly when the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship came to Stonewall’s North Course in September.
Joy-Connelly had missed much of 2022 when a golf cart seized on her and she ended up having surgery to repair a damaged rotator cuff.
She was Tara Joy when she starred at Miami in the 1990s and she is no stranger to the Florida women’s amateur scene as she competed in the Sunshine State while her husband, J.P. Connelly, a PGA professional, worked at clubs in the South Florida Section.
Joy-Connelly went back home to Massachusetts when Connelly accepted the job as the head pro at The Kittansett Club on Buzzards Bay in Marion, Mass. The Philadelphia golf community is very familiar with J.P.’s dad, Jack Connelly, the longtime head pro at Huntingdon Valley Country Club and a past president of the PGA of America.
Joy-Connelly was in the midst of playing herself back into shape when she showed up at Stonewall. Having turned 50 early in 2023, Joy-Connelly had earned a trip to the U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Waverley Country Club in Portland, Ore.
I was really impressed with Joy-Connelly’s ball-striking and it took her all of one practice round to figure out the green speeds on the often maddening Tom Doak complexes at the North. And you couldn’t help but like the way Joy-Connelly competes.
Rain and darkness were closing in at the end of our second round of qualifying for match play and Joy-Connelly knew, at 12-over, that she was on bubble. And she battled hard. Would have been nice if that birdie putt at 17 had taken one more roll, but she got it in at 12-over and that got her in a playoff among her and seven others for the final three spots in match play the following morning.
After a couple of hard-earned pars (the first of her two putts for par on the second playoff hole earned shot-of-the-year honors in my year-end post a couple of weeks ago), Joy-Connelly had made it into the match-play bracket.
Joy-Connelly’s reward was a match with one of the three co-medalists, Jackie Rogowicz, a player I had often seen when she was one of the top high school players in Pennsylvania at Pennsbury a decade ago. Rogowicz played really well and rolled to a 5 and 4 victory on her way to the semifinals.
So yeah, as the results rolled in from Cedar Ridge and Joy-Connelly kept advancing in the Jones/Doherty Senior Women’s Amateur match-play bracket, I was absolutely pulling for her.
And didn’t Joy-Connelly go out and win the thing, claiming a 3 and 2 victory over the defending Jones/Doherty Senior champion Shelly Haywood, a former head coach at Arizona from Laguna Hills, Calif., in Friday’s final.
Joy-Connelly survived a couple of tough tests in match play earlier in the week, but she cruised through her final three matches to capture the Jones/Doherty Senior crown for the first time.
The biggest moment in the final came early in the match at the third hole. Joy-Connelly, already 2-up, bunkered her approach at the third hole while Haywood was in tight with just a six-footer for birdie.
But in a classic match-play turnaround, Joy-Connelly holed her bunker shot from 18 yards away and a stunned Haywood missed her birdie try. Joy-Connelly then buried a 25-footer for birdie at the fourth hole to put Haywood in a 4-down hole that she was never able to climb out of.
“We both kind of traded mistakes on the first hole and I made a nice putt to win the hole,” Joy-Connelly told Gary Curreri, a freelance reporter for the Sun Sentinel who did a nice job reporting on the Jones/Doherty on the Coral Ridge website all week. “I made par on the second and on the third I made a birdie out of the sand.
“I rolled in a 25-footer for birdie on the fourth, which put me 4-up through four. With the pins and the wind, you know you are going to lose some.”
Haywood immediately battled back by winning the fifth and sixth holes to cut her deficit in half, but Joy-Connelly picked up wins at 10 and 12 to restore her 4-up advantage. Haywood again got back-to-back wins at the 13th and 14th holes to cut her deficit to 2-down with five holes to play.
But Joy-Connelly two-putted from 20 feet to take the 15th hole and close out the win.
A couple of weeks after her first-round exit at Stonewall, Joy-Connelly reached the second round of match play as a senior “rookie” in the U.S. Women’s Senior Amateur Championship at Troon Country Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. before falling, 8 and 6, to a red-hot Sarah LeBrun Ingram, the captain of the last two winning United States Curtis Cup teams.
Haywood also reached the second round of match play at Troon before dropping a 20-hole thriller to Mary Ann Hayward, a fairly legendary Canadian amateur and winner of the 2005 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship at Shadow Hawk Golf Club in Richmond, Texas.
You could argue that the Jones/Doherty Senior division was more competitive than the amateur division. The Senior division championship bracket was 32 players while the Amateur division bracket was comprised of only 16 players.
As Joy-Connelly alluded to, the South Florida weather in early January was typically dicey. There were some of the usual breezy conditions for Monday’s qualifying round, but Tuesday’s opening day of match play featured gusts up to 40 mph. A nice day Wednesday was followed by rainy weather Thursday when the Senior division played two rounds of matches, the quarterfinals and the semifinals.
Joy-Connelly finished in a tie for ninth place in Monday’s qualifying for match play with a 7-over 79. Medalist honors went to Canadian Judith Kyrinis, the 2017 U.S. Women’s Senior Amateur champion at Waverley Country Club in Portland, Ore. and the runnerup to Haywood in the Jones/Doherty Senior division final a year ago at Coral Ridge. Kyrinis, the 2020 Jones/Doherty Senior winner, carded a solid 1-over 73 to claim the top seed in the match-play bracket.
As is often the case, Joy-Connelly’s toughest two matches were her first two. She pulled out a 1-up decision over Kathy Hartwiger, the 2002 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion at Eugene Country Club in Eugene, Ore. and a legendary figure in Alabama amateur circles, in Tuesday’s winds.
Joy-Connelly then needed 22 holes to outlast Robin Kraft in the second round Wednesday and reach the quarterfinals.
Joy-Connelly’s quarterfinal opponent was South Florida legend Mary Jane Hiestand, who made a remarkable run to the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur final at age 58 in 2017 at Champions Golf Club in Houston before falling.
The Naples, Fla. resident had stunned Kyrinis, the qualifying medalist, on the 19th hole in the opening round of match play and went 19 holes to oust Suzie Spotleson in the second round. Spotleson lists Canton, Ohio as her home town, but she maintains a membership at the RiverCrest Golf Club & Preserve and competes in Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia events.
Joy-Connelly got in a groove in her two matches Thursday, rolling to a 6 and 5 decision over Hiestand and then cruising to a 6 and 4 victory over Kimbra Benson of Pinehurst, N.C. in the semifinals to book a spot in the final. Joy-Connelly punctuated her victory over Benson by chipping in from off the green.
Haywood shared second place in qualifying for match play with Wendi Christensen of Coral Springs, Fla., each posting a 2-over 74 that left them a shot behind Kyrinis. Haywood opened her road to the final with a 5 and 4 victory over Judy Penman.
Haywood faced a tough second-round opponent in Ingram, a three-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Am champion in the 1990s before rheumatoid arthritis put a stop to competitive golf for her for 20 years. But, at age 57, Ingram has rediscovered her game and had a nice summer. Haywood, however, rolled to a 7 and 5 victory over Ingram, who calls Nashville, Tenn. home.
Haywood got a little bit of a break when her quarterfinal opponent, Jayne Pardus, came down with the flu and was forced to forfeit.
Haywood faced another tough Canadian in Terrill Samuel, the runnerup to her countrywoman Kyrinis in the 2017 U.S. Women’s Senior Am at Waverley, in the semifinals and claimed a 3 and 2 victory to earn her spot in the final opposite Joy-Connelly.
Alexandra Frazier, a longtime Gulph Mills Golf Club member, earned a spot in the Jones/Doherty Senior match-play bracket and was knocked in the opening round with a 2 and 1 setback at the hands of Christensen.
In the Jones/Doherty Senior First Flight final, Adrienne MacLean of Tequesta, Fla. claimed the title with a 3 and 2 victory over Lin Culver of Palm Coast, Fla.
In the Second Flight final, Shirley Vaughn of Pinehurst, N.C. needed 20 holes to defeat Suzanne Ricard of Parkland, Fla. and capture the title.
Filler got the jump on Schremmer in Friday’s final of the Jones/Doherty Amateur Championship, grabbing a 2-up lead after six holes. Schremmer, however, battled back to win the next three holes, sinking a 25-foot putt on the ninth hole to take a 1-up edge.
But Filler, who is No. 67 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), got it going on the incoming nine at Coral Ridge with wins at the 10th, 11th, 13th and 14th holes to take a commanding 3-up lead.
“I love competition,” Filler told the Sun Sentinel’s Gurrier. “I’m proud that I was able to stay consistent throughout the week and having good match-play strategy. Match play is so different from stroke play.
“You just have to have a better stroke and better score than the person you are playing with. I was happy I was able to switch mindsets from the stroke play to match play.”
Filler did a pretty good job of that last spring when she accounted for Florida’s lone point with a 1-up victory over Texas A&M’s Jennie Park in the Gators’ 4-1 loss in the Southeastern Conference Championship quarterfinals at Graystone Golf & Country Club in Hoover, Ala.
Filler’s road to the title at Coral Ridge began with a 7 and 5 victory over Peyton Costabile, a sophomore at Towson from Canada.
Filler, who lost to Pano in the Jones/Doherty quarterfinals in 2018, then took out defending champion Morgan Miller, a sophomore at Colorado from Cedar Park, Texas, 4 and 3, in this year’s quarterfinals.
Filler then reached the final with a hard-fought 2 and 1 victory over Anna Ritter, a sophomore at Illinois from New Albany, Ohio. Ritter was in the lineup when the Fighting Illini claimed the first Big Ten team title in program history last spring at Fox Chapel Golf Club in the Pittsburgh suburbs.
Ritter had defeated Sydney Grimes, a senior at Division II Barry from Suffolk, Va., on the 19th hole in the second round.
Grimes had opened match play by taking out 10-time Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship winner Meghan Stasi, 2-up. Stasi, a South Jersey native who resides in Fort Lauderdale these days, is a two-time Jones/Doherty winner. She finished in sixth place in qualifying for match play with a 4-over 76.
It was during last year’s Jones/Doherty that the USGA announced that Stasi had accepted the assignment to be the captain for the U.S. side in this summer’s Curtis Cup Match against Great Britain & Ireland at Sunningdale Golf Club in England. Stasi, a four-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Am champion, played on the winning U.S. team in the 2008 Curtis Cup Match at the Old Course at St. Andrews.
Schremmer opened her trip to the final with a 2 and 1 victory over South Carolinian Dawn Woodard, who has teamed with Stasi in the first eight editions of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship.
Schremmer then rolled to a 6 and 5 victory over a pal of hers, Gabriel Albert of Delray Beach, Fla., in the quarterfinals before edging another junior standout, Kayla Bryant, a 16-year-old sophomore at FAU High in Boca Raton, Fla., 3 and 1, in the semifinals.
Bryant was coming off a really impressive five-shot victory in the Junor Orange Bowl International Championship, which wrapped up Jan. 6th at the Biltmore Golf Club, the Donald Ross classic in Coral Gables, Fal.
In the First Flight final, Scarlet Weidig, a redshirt junior at Montana State from Costa Rica, claimed the title with a 6 and 4 victory over Sophia Quinones of Coral Springs, Fla.
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