Ohio State sophomore Kary Hollenbaugh pulled away from the field with a nearly flawless final round of 4-under-par 68 Saturday at Oceanside Country Club in Ormond Beach, Fla. to capture the title in the prestigious South Atlantic Women’s Amateur Championship, better known simply as The Sally, by five shots.
Part of the unofficial Orange Blossom Tour, a group of amateur tournaments for women in South Florida in the winter, The Sally will turn 100 in two years. It has as much history as any women’s amateur tournament in the country.
Hollenbaugh, an Ohio native from New Albany, entered the final round with a two-shot lead over 16-year-old phenom Gianna Clemente, who is No. 23 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR).
Clemente, who resides in Estero, Fla., is, like Hollenbaugh, a native Ohioan from Warren and was the defending champion in The Sally. Hollenbaugh, who finished in a tie for sixth place in The Sally a year ago, was well aware what she was up against in battling Clemente.
The forecast for Saturday’s final round was ominous and tournament officials opted for a shotgun start. But the worst of the weather stayed south of Ormond Beach and the final round was completed.
Hollenbaugh was coming off solid fall for the Buckeyes in the first half of the wraparound 2023-2024 college season. The head coach at Ohio State is Lisa Strom, the 1994 PIAA champion as a senior at Lansdale Catholic who went to star for the Buckeyes.
Hollenbaugh’s strong finish gave her a 9-under 279 total for the 72-hole stroke-play event.
Hollenbaugh opened with 1-under 71, a total she matched in a second round when the tough Oceanside layout was buffeted by some of the notorious winds that often kick up in Florida in January. Hollenbaugh carded a 3-under 69 in the third round to take a two-shot lead into the final round with her 5-under total.
Hollenbaugh and Clemente were in the group that went off the first tee in the final round. Hollenbaugh got right to work with birdies at the first, second, fifth and seventh holes to get it to 9-under for the championship. She made a fifth birdie at the 16th hole before giving a shot back with a bogey at 17.
Clemente closed with a solid 1-under 71 to finish alone in second place with a 4-under 284 total. She never quite recovered from the 4-over 76 she posted in the tough conditions for Thursday’s second round.
Clemente will be one of a dozen players who will participate in a practice session for candidates for the United States team for this summer’s 43rd Curtis Cup Match at Sunningdale Golf Club in England. The practice session will be Jan. 19 and 20 at Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Fla. and Pine Tree Golf Club in Boynton Beach, Fla.
Virginia Tech sophomore Morgan Ketchum of Winston-Salem, N.C. finished two shots behind Clemente in third place with a 2-under 286 total.
After struggling a little in an opening round of 3-over 75, Ketchum, the runnerup to Clemente in The Sally a year ago, signed for a 3-under 69 in Thursday’s tough conditions, the only round in the 60s for the day. Ketchum matched par in the third round with a 72 before closing with a solid 2-under 70.
Siuue Wu, a native of Hong Kong who will join the program at Southeastern Conference power Georgia at the end of the summer, was another two shots behind Ketchum in fourth place with an even-par 288 total.
After opening with a 1-over 73, Wu wrapped a pair of even-par 72s around a 1-under 71 in Friday’s third round.
Mississippi senior Ellen Hume of England, winner of The Sally in 2021, and Alice Ziyi Zhao of Irvine, Calif. via China, finished in a tie for fifth place, each ending up four shots behind Wu at 4-over 292.
Hume struggled to a 5-over 77 in Thursday’s windy conditions, but bounced back with a pair of 1-under 71s in the final two rounds.
Zhao, a Class of 2027 competitor, was the surprising co-medalist as a 13-year-old in qualifying for match play in the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash. two summer ago. After struggling to a 4-over 76 in the opening round at Oceanside, Zhao battled back to 1-over with a 1-under 71 in the second round and a 2-under 70 in the third round before backing off a little with a 3-over 75 in the final round.
It was a second straight strong showing in The Sally for Avery McCrery, a junior at Tower Hill School in Wilmington and the reigning Delaware scholastic girls state champion.
I was a little surprised a year ago when McCrery finished third in The Sally, so I wasn’t surprised at all this year when she again found herself in contention at Oceanside before finishing in a group of four players tied for seventh place at 5-over 293, a shot behind Hume and Zhao.
McCrery, who plans to follow the Delaware pipeline and join the program at Atlantic Coast Conference power Duke in the summer of 2025, matched par in the opening round with a 72 before struggling a little with a 5-over 77 in Thursday’s wind.
A 3-under 69 in the third round left McCrery seven shots behind Hollenbaugh going into the final round. In that round, McCrery ripped off four birdies in a six-hole stretch from the fifth through the 10th holes. A bogey at the 16th hole was the only blemish on her scorecard.
McCrery started the final round at the second hole in the shotgun start and quickly made a birdie at the third hole. She followed up a bogey at the sixth hole with a birdie at seven, but then she got on the bogey train on the incoming nine at Oceanside with bogeys at 11, 13, 14 and 15 as she finished up with a 3-over 75.
McCrery earned a spot in the match-play bracket in the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at the Air Force Academy Eisenhower Golf Club’s Blue Course in Colorado Springs, Colo. last summer before falling in the first round.
Joining McCrery in the foursome tied for seventh place at 5-over were Katelyn Huber, a Class of 2025 entry from Gainesville, Fla., Amelie Zalsman, another talented Class of 2027 competitor from St. Petersburg, Fla., and Julia Misemer, a sophomore at Pac-12 power Arizona from Overland Park, Kan.
Huber matched par in the final round with a 72 while Zalsman struggled a little in the final round with a 4-over 76.
Misemer, who has earned a spot in the match-play bracket in each of last two U.S. Women’s Amateurs and finished in a tie for fourth place in The Sally a year ago, closed with a solid 2-under 70.
The two finalists in last summer’s Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship at Sandy Run Country Club, Meghan Stasi, who captured the title for the 10th time, and Clare Gimpel, who has resurfaced as a junior at Division II Florida Southern in Lakeland, Fla. after spending a couple of seasons at Coastal Carolina, failed to make the 54-hole cut in The Sally.
Stasi, who resides in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and competes out of Tavistock Country Club when she comes home to South Jersey to compete in the Philly Women’s Amateur, is a perennial competitor in The Sally.
But she can be forgiven if she’s a little distracted this winter. Stasi, a four-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion, is the captain for the U.S. Curtis Cup team that will tee it up at Sunningdale this summer. It is Stasi that Clemente will be hoping to impress in the practice session at Seminole and Pine Tree in a couple of weeks.
Stasi, who reached the second round of match play in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at the “Udder Course,” the North at Stonewall, opened with an 81 at Oceanside and struggled to an 87 in the difficult conditions of the second round before posting a solid 2-over 74 for a 242 total.
Gimpel, who starred scholastically at Mount St. Joseph and plays out of Whitemarsh Valley Country Club, opened with a 79 at Oceanside. But she, too, struggled to an 87 in Thursday’s wind before adding an 81 in the third round for a 247 total.
Mackenzie McCormack was a runaway winner of the Rockefeller Division of The Sally.
Looks like McCormack might be from Jacksonville, Fla., but there was no mistaking her domination of the Rockefeller Division, which was 54 holes and concluded Friday, as she won by 26 shots.
Not sure if the Rockefeller Division is an age or a handicap division, but McCormack sandwiched a 5-over 77 in Friday’s windy second round with a pair of 1-under 71s for a 3-over 219 total.
Michelle Wallace was the runnerup as she added an 86 in the second round to her opening-round 81 before closing with a solid 78 for a 29-over 245 total.
Merion Golf Club’s ageless Liz Haines, who never seems to miss a chance to tee it up in an Orange Blossom Tour event, finished in a tie for eighth place with a 258 total.
The 70-something Haines, the runnerup in the U.S. Women’s Senior Amateur Championship in 2003, added an 88 in the tough conditions of Thursday’s second round to her opening-round 83 before finishing up with an 87.
Less than a week earlier, Haines teed it up in the Forever 49 division of the Citrus Golf Trail Ladies Invitational at the Sun ’n Lake Golf & Country Club’s Deer Run Course in Sebring, Fla., which wrapped up on New Year’s Eve.
The Citrus Golf Trail Ladies Invitational is the descendant of the Harder Hall Ladies Invitational, a long-time stop on the Orange Blossom Tour that was discontinued with the closing of the golf course at the Harder Hall Resort. The golf community in Sebring didn’t want to see that legacy come to an end and joined together to create the Citrus Golf Trail Ladies Invitational.
Haines finished in seventh place in the Forever 49 Division with a 324 total. The highlight was a 1-over 73 in the third round, which, I’m fairly certain, was a round in which Haines shot her age. It’s one thing to shoot your age, but to do it in competition has to make it very special.
After opening with an 87, Haines wrapped a pair of 82s around her third-round 73.
Overall at Sun ’n Lake, it was an official phenom alert as 14-year-old Moroccan Sofia Cherif Essakali closed with a sparkling 4-under 68 at the Deer Run Course to claim a two-shot victory with a 6-under 282 total.
The kid made a big splash last winter when she became, at age 13, the youngest player to make the cut in the Lalla Maryem Cup, a Ladies European (LET) stop in her native Morocco.
Cherif Essakali opened with a 1-under 71, struggled a little in the second round with a 2-over 74, but bounced right back with a 3-under 69 in the third round before her closing 68.
Cherif Essakali’s final round featured four birdies and an eagle at the par-4 14th hole, where her 50-degree wedge shot from 97 yards away found the bottom of the cup. That got her to 6-under for her round and gave her a commanding lead. A double bogey at the 17th hole dropped her back to 4-under for the round, but she had plenty of cushion to work with.
Chloe Schiavone, a senior at Notre Dame from Jacksonville, Fla., closed with a solid 3-under 69 to earn runnerup honors with a 4-under 284 total, two shots behind Cherif Essakali.
Thanana Kotchasanmanee of Thailand was another shot behind Schiavone in third place with a 3-under 285 after finishing up with a 1-under 71. Kotchasanmanee plans to join the program at Ivy League power Princeton in the summer of 2025.
Angela Zhang of Bellevue, Wash. matched par in the final round with a 72 to finish a shot behind Kotchasanmanee in fourth place with a 2-under 286 total. Zhang, a Class of ’27 competitor, earned herself a spot in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Open at the iconic Pebble Beach Golf Links on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula as a 14-year-old.
Sarah Shao of Green Brook, N.J. closed with a 1-under 71 to finish a shot behind Zhang in fifth place with a 1-under 71. Shao is another Ivy League-bound player as she will join the program at Columbia at the end of this summer.
Angelina Tolentino, a senior at Lenape High in South Jersey, closed with a solid 2-under 70 to finish alone in eighth place with a 5-over 293 total.
Tolentino, who will join the program at Vanderbilt in the SEC at the end of this summer, matched par in the opening round with a 72, struggled a little in the second round with a 5-over 77 and posted a 2-over 74 in the third round before getting it in red figures with her final-round 70.
The winner of the Forever 49 Division was Kim Keyer-Scott of Bonita Springs, Fla. as she closed with a 2-over 74 for a 13-over 301 total.
Keyer-Scott, winner of the Forever 49 Division in the final year at Harder Hall in 2021, earned a spot in the match-play bracket in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at Stonewall’s North Course before falling in the first round and reached the second round of match play a couple of weeks later in the U.S. Women’s Senior Am at Troon Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Keyer-Scott opened with a 4-over 76, added a solid 2-over 74 in the second round and had a 77 in the third round before her closing 74.
Terrill Samuel, the transplanted Canadian who resides in Boynton Beach, Fla., was the runnerup as she closed with a 5-over 77 to fish two shots behind Keyer-Scott with a 303 total. Samuel was the winner of the Royal & Ancient’s Women’s Senior Amateur crown two summers ago at Royal Dornoch in Scotland.
Martha Leach of Hebron, Ky. finished a shot behind Samuel in third place as she closed with a 2-over 74 to end up with a 304 total.
Got a chance to watch Leach’s game as she was in our group for 36 holes of qualifying for match play in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at Stonewall. I was on the bag for Tara Joy-Connelly of Middleborough, Mass.
Despite not having her best stuff, Leach earned a spot in the match play bracket at Stonewall. A couple of weeks later, Leach reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Women’s Senior Am at Troon.
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