Stasi, coming down from an emotional Curtis Cup experience, reaches second round of U.S. Women's Mid-Am

 

   Meghan Stasi probably experienced every possible emotion as the captain of the United States team in last month’s Curtis Cup Match against home-standing Great Britain & Ireland at Sunningdale Golf Club in Berkshire, England.

   The U.S. suffered a 10.5-9.5 defeat at the hands of a talented GB&I team determined not to lose on home soil. For Stasi, it was likely at times exhilarating, frustrating, joyous, maddening, inspiring and depressing.

   Playing in a first-round match at the U.S. Women’s Amateur Mid-Amateur Championship, an event the 46-year-old Stasi has won four times and made deep match-play runs countless times, probably felt almost relaxing. At least Stasi didn’t have thousands of passionate Brits rooting against her.

   Stasi has lived in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. for years now. She was Meghan Bolger, playing out of Tavistock Country Club, when she ripped off seven straight Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia (WGAP) Match Play Championship wins from 1999 to 2005.

   That set the stage for Stasi’s brilliant career as a mid-am. Meghan Stasi knows what to do in match play, especially when it looks like the chips are down.

   Stasi’s opening-round opponent Monday in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship at Brae Burn Country Club in West Newtown, Mass. was Kelsey Chugg, the 2017 U.S. Women’s Mid-Am champ and twice a beaten finalist.

   Watched Chugg gut out a 1-up victory over Jackie Rogowicz, playing an hour away from Yardley, where she grew up, in the semifinals of last year’s U.S. Women’s Am at Stonewall’s North Course. Chugg is one tough customer in match play.

   Chugg would fall, 2-up, to Kimberly Dinh of Midland, Mich. in the final.

   When Chugg put together back-to-back wins at the 11^th and 12^th holes Monday at Brae Burn, she had a 3-up lead on Stasi with six holes to play. Stasi shrugged and got to work, taking four straight wins at the 14^th, 15^th, 16^th and 17^th holes to turn a 3-down deficit into a 1-up advantage. A half at the last gave Stasi a 1-up victory.

   Stasi stuck her tee shot at the par-17^th hole to three feet and converted the putt to pull ahead for good.

   “It’s so hard, especially the first match,” Stasi told the USGA website. “But there’s so many good players now and it’s really fun to see some new faces. (Kelsey and I) don’t get to see each other a lot anymore, just with traveling and everything, but she’s so strong. You know she’s not going to let up either. She’s not going to give it away.”

   Stasi will get another of her pals and another former U.S. Women’s Mid-Am champion in Tuesday morning’s second round when she takes on the always fashionable Ina Kim-Schaad of Jupiter, Fla.

   Kim-Schaad, the 2019 U.S. Women’s Mid-Am winner, and Stasi have teamed up to win the Women’s International Four-Ball, a stop on the unofficial Orange Blossom Tour in the winter in South Florida, four times, most recently in February of 2023.

   Kim-Schaad reached the second round with a 3 and 2 victory over Tracy Martin of Nashua, N.H. in Monday’s opening round.

   The winners of Tuesday morning’s second-round matches will meet in the round of 16 in the afternoon. Eight quarterfinalists will be left standing by the end of the day Tuesday.

   Two of the Philadelphia area’s two hopefuls, however, failed to survive the opening round of match play Monday as Rogowicz, a Yardley resident and a former Penn State standout, and Isabella DiLisio, a Hatfield resident who starred at Notre Dame, both suffered heartbreaking losses, both on the 21^st hole.

   Rogowicz and DiLisio were part of a golden age in District One girls golf, a group of scholastic standouts a decade or so ago that regularly contended for state titles, DiLisio, then a junior at Mount St. Joseph, winning the PIAA Class AAA crown in 2013.

   Rogowicz, a two-time District One Class AAA champion and a three-time runnerup at the state championship while at Pennsbury, had taken a 1-up lead over Sherry Zhong of China by taking the 16^th hole in a match that had see-sawed all day.

   But Zhong was able to force extra holes with a win at the 18^th hole and then knocked out Rogowicz, who had made a really nice run to the semifinals at year ago at Stonewall’s North Course before falling to Chugg, on the 21^st hole. Rogowicz is playing out of Merion Golf Club these days.

   DiLisio, playing out of Philadelphia Cricket Club, had reached the semifinals as a mid-am “rookie” two years ago at Fiddlesticks Country Club’s Long Mean Course in Fort Myers, Fla. and reached the round of 16 a year ago at Stonewall.

   She found herself staring at a 3-down deficit with four holes to go against Hana Ryskova, a native of Czechia who player her college golf at Louisville and was seeded sixth in the match-play bracket.

   DiLisio, however, came roaring back with wins at the 15^th, 17^th and 18^th holes to force extra holes before falling to Ryskova on the 21^st.

   Rogowicz and DiLisio remain a couple of talented young mid-ams. You compete at this level of golf, there’s going to be some match-play scar tissue. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least to see them making a couple of deep runs in U.S. Women’s Mid-Ams down the road.

   Although Alyssa Roland lives in Short Hills, N.J., she is an Overbrook Golf Club person at heart. Roland, an Ivy League champion at Yale, has increasingly become a factor in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am, reaching the round of 16 at Stonewall’s North Course a year ago.

   Roland came out on the winning side of an extra-holes thriller in Monday’s opening round as she ousted Gretchen Johnson of Portland, Ore. and a semifinalist a year ago at Stonewall’s North Course in 20 holes.

   The match went back and forth all day, but it looked like Johnson might prevail when she made a birdie at the par-3 17^th hole to take a 1-up lead to the 18^th tee. But Roland won the 18^th hole with a par to send the match to extra holes. A birdie on the 20^th hole gave Roland the victory.

   As I wrap up this post Tuesday morning, Roland’s second-round match with Judith Kyrinis, the 60-year-old Canadian, is under way.

   The ageless Kyrinis, who ousted DiLisio to reach the quarterfinals a year ago at the “Udder Course” at Stonewall, claimed a 4 and 2 decision over Lucy Burke of Manhattan, Kan. in Monday’s opening round at Brae Burn.

   Samantha Perrotta, the winner of the 2020 WGAP Match Play Championship from Bordentown, N.J., suffered a 3 and 2 setback at the hands of Lauren Greenlief, the 2015 U.S. Women’s Mid-Am champion from Ashburn, Va.

   Greenlief had the shot of the day when her 8-iron at the 163-yard eighth hole found the bottom of the cup for a hole-in-one.

   Greenlief built a 5-up lead through nine holes, but Perrotta fought back with three straight birdies at the 10^th, 11^th and 12^th holes. Greenlief finally closed Perrotta out with a conceded eagle at the par-4 16^th hole.

   One of the co-medalists in qualifying for match play, former Michigan State standout Jacqueline Setas, advanced with a 4 and 3 victory over Sydney Gillespie of Highlands Ranch, Colo.

   Setas, who fell to Rogowicz in the round of 16 a year ago at Stonewall’s North Course, survived a battle with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma during her time at Michigan State.

   The other co-medalist in qualifying, Sabrina Coffman of Toledo, Ohio was an upset victim in the opening round as Raegan Bremer, who starred collegiately at Houston and is a Mont Belvieu, Texas resident, knocked off Coffman with a 2 and 1 decision.