For the second time in three years, Tessa Teachman, an instructor at Aronimink Golf Club, captured the title in the Women’s Philadelphia PGA Professional Championship as she matched par with a 72 Wednesday at Gulph Mills Golf Club, the venerable Donald Ross design that is an island of tranquility amid the hustle and bustle of Upper Merion Township.
Teachman was just off the injured list when she claimed the Philly Section’s top prize for its women pros two years ago at Chester Valley.
A junior phenom in her hometown of Rochester, N.Y., Teachman played her college golf at LSU in the ultra-competitive Southeastern Conference and competed on the Symetra Tour, now known as the Epson Tour, the LPGA’s developmental circuit.
She has found a home at Aronimink and has clearly established herself as one of the Philly Section’s top women players.
Teachman got off to a little bit of a slow start at Gulph Mills. After a bogey at the second hole, Teachman made a birdie at three, but then got on the bogey train a little with bogeys at four, six and 11 that left her at 3-over for the round.
Not long before that bogey at the 11th hole, Teachman got a pep talk from her caddy and boyfriend Andrew Cornish, an assistant pro at Green Valley Country Club and a talented player in his own right.
“It was an interesting day,” Teachman told the Philadelphia Section PGA website. “I was hitting it well, but just couldn’t get it going, but when we turned the back nine, my boyfriend and caddy (Cornish) lit a fire under me and said, ‘Let’s get moving.’ From there, the ball started going in the hole.”
Teachman made birdies at the 12th and 14th holes, stumbled briefly with a bogey at 15, but finished strong with birdies at 16 and 18 to get it in at even-par and claim the top prize of $2,300.
It was eight shots back to Beatrice Smith, who works out of the pro shop at Gulph Mills and who was Teachman’s playing partner in the first group of the day, and Brittany Weddell, who works out of the Green Valley Country Club pro shop, in a tie for second place, each posting an 8-over 80.
Weddell worked in the pro shop at Stonewall before heading to Green Valley a few years ago and she was in our group for the Partner-Pro at the ’Wall earlier this month. She was really solid that day. I looped that day for Cornish, Teachman’s boyfriend and caddy for the Women’s Philly Section Championship. Cornish has a ton of game.
Joanna Coe, the head of instruction at Merion Golf Club and the Philadelphia Section’s three-time reigning Rolex/Haverford Trust Company Women’s Player of the Year, did not tee it up at Gulph Mills.
Coe has been playing some really solid golf, finishing in a tie for 11th place in the Philadelphia PGA Professional Championship at Concord Country Club earlier this month. That earned her a ticket to next spring’s PGA Professional Championship at the Bandon Dunes Resort, one of the game’s most popular destinations on Oregon’s rugged coastline.
Wilmington Country Club’s Meghan Spero finished a shot behind Smith and Weddell in fourth place with an 81.
Spero’s round was highlighted by her first career hole-in-one as her 5-iron shot at the 153-yard 17th hole found the bottom of the cup.
Megan Leineweber, in her first full year as the head pro at Stonewall, and Jennifer Cully, playing out of Honeybrook Golf Club, shared fifth place, each signing for an 83.
Patty Post, the director of both the men’s and women’s golf programs at Delaware, and Alex Carr, a colleague of Teachman’s in the pro shop at Aronimink, finished in a tie for seventh place, each landing on 85.
Carol Gossett, playing out of the pro shop Brookside Country Club in Pottstown, took ninth place with an 88 and Bridget McLaughlin, who works in the pro shop at Waynesborough Country Club, rounded out the field in the Women’s Philadelphia PGA Professional Championship as she finished 10th with a 95.
The Women’s Philadelphia PGA Professional Championship was presented by the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board and was supported by KM Golf Sales/Kevin McClellan and the PGA Tour.
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