Kan helps Purdue finish second in Big Ten

   Aurora Kan, the three-time Daily Times Player of the Year at Chichester, matched her career-best collegiate round and helped Purdue finish second at the Big Ten Tournament which concluded Sunday at the Donald Ross Golf Course at French Lick in French Lick, Ind.
   Kan, a true freshman who had a rough day to open the tournament with an 84, carded a 2-over 74 in Sunday’s final round as the Boilermakers posted a tournament-low round of 291 to finish at 895, 10 shots back of Big Ten champion Michigan State.
    Junior Laura Gonzalez-Escallon, a native of La Hulpe, Belgium, ran Purdue’s streak of Big Ten individual champions to five straight as she fired back-to-back 69s in the last two rounds to offset an opening-round 78 for an even-par 216 total. Gonzalez-Escallon, who won the title as a freshman in 2010, finished one shot ahead of Michigan’s Yugene Lee.
Ohio State’s Rachel Rohanna, who won the PIAA title at Waynesburg as a junior in 2007, was among four players who finished in a tie for third at 2-over 218.
   The Boilermakers found out Monday night that they will be participating in the NCAA Central Regional Tournament May 10 to 12, which Ohio State will host at its Scarlet Course.
   Illinois finished fifth at the Big Ten Tournament and received an invite Monday to the West Regional Tournament,  being hosted by Colorado at the Colorado National Golf Club in Erie, Colo.
   Jackie Calamaro, 2009-10 Daily Times Player of the Year at Radnor, is a redshirt freshman at Illinois, but did not make the trip to the Big Ten Tournament. Calamaro was in the mix for all of Illinois’ events this season.
   Kan, the 2010 PIAA champion as a senior at Chichester, got better every day at French Lick, following that opening-round 84 with a 78 and then the final-round 74. Her 236 total left her in a tie for 40th with seven other players, including teammate Kishi Sinha (80-77-79), a junior.
   In addition to Gonzalez-Escallon, Purdue got strong showings from junior Paula Reto (76-75-72), who finished in a tie for 10th at 7-over 223 and freshman Vicky Scherer (76-73-76), who finished in a tie for 14th at 9-over 225.
   Rounding out the Purdue contingent, freshman Kendall Dusenberry (84-84-95) finished 71st at 263.
   Michigan State was the model of consistency with rounds of 298, 292 and 295 in taking the team title with an 885 total.      

   After opening the tournament with a disappointing 310 total that left them in eighth place, the Boilermakers surged to a runnerup finish with rounds of 294 and 291.

Strong finish for Kania, Villanova men   The basics of Villanova’s third-place finish in the Big East Tournament and the third-place finish for junior Michael Kania in the individual chase appeared in Wednesday’s Daily Times, but it’s worth expanding on a nice season for the Wildcats.
   Villanova got it under par with its 3-under 285 in the final round over the 7,089-yard, par-72 Watson Course at the Reunion Resort in Orlando, Fla. Combined with their first two rounds of 293 and 292, the Wildcats’ 870 total left them just two shots behind runnerup Louisville and 18 shots back of Big East champion Notre Dame. Villanova’s best finish at the Big East Tournament is third, which it’s accomplished two years in a row.
   “I’m proud of the way that we stayed patient all week,” head coach James Wilks said on Villanova’s website. “They didn’t worry about things that were out of their control, especially (Tuesday) when we had an under-par performance. To have all five guys finish in the top 25 is something special and I’m very proud of them.”
   Kania, the two-time Haverford School All-Delco and Golf Association of Philadelphia Amateur Championship runnerup last summer, capped off a strong junior season by matching par with a final-round 72.
   Kania started off with back-to-back 2-under 70s and his 4-under 212 total left him just two shots back of Big East champion Max Scodro of Notre Dame. The tie for third was Kania’s second-best finish this spring, behind only his title at the Pinehurst Invitational. It was his third top-10 finish of the year.
   Junior Derek Jones finished 13th as he fired a final-round of 2-under 70 for a 2-over 218 total. Junior Steve Skurla finished in a tie for 15th at 4-over 220 after a final round of 1-under 71.
   Two seniors rounded out the scoring in their final events at Villanova. Bret McGaughey matched par with a final-round 72 and ended up in a tie for 17th at 5-over 221 and Brian Colbert had a final round of 2-over 74 and finished in a tie for 23rd at 7-over 223.

Radnor golfers raising money for First Tee

   Three members of the Radnor girls team that won District One and East Regional team titles last fall and Radnor coach Andy Achenbach will play a 100-hole marathon Monday, May 21 at Overbrook Golf Club with proceeds benefiting First Tee of Greater Philadelphia.
   Two years ago, Achenbach was joined by his top boys and girls player from the previous fall, All-Delco Jin Hwang and 2009-10 Daily Times Player of the Year Jackie Calamaro, in a similar marathon at Walnut Lane Golf Club. They played 102 holes and raised in the neighborhood of $10,000 for First Tee of Greater Philadelphia.
   Radnor juniors Jamie Susanin, a state qualifier as an individual last fall, and Allie Ziegler, and senior Caitlin Sullivan will tee it up with Achenbach in the marathon day of golf.
   Susanin and Ziegler will captain the Radnor girls team next fall Sullivan was the captain of last fall’s team that finished second in the team chase at the PIAA Tournament.
   You can support the fundraising effort by visiting https://mail.journalregister.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=IVS6WvXwFkG158Qw8tFpAPvM-e3G-84ITnmJywwahZntWMfD-uZssDT4NI-YPUUayKAqMp3rOIM.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.thefirstteephiladelphia.org and typing in an amount in the Donate box. Then click the donate button and proceed through the Google checkout.

Toughening up Merion East

   The countdown to the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club’s East Course in the Ardmore section of Haverford Township has reached 408 days amid news that the USGA is at work toughening up the Grand Dame of the Main Line for her fifth U.S. Open.
   Mike Davis is the executive director of the USGA, but he is best known as the guru of Open setups and he is already at work on the East Course, which many golf “experts” feel isn’t tough enough to stand up to today’s bashers.
It appears Davis is planning to do away with the intermediate cut of rough, although he plans to round off the entry to the rough. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it does sound like the rough is going to be rough for the 2013 Open.
   “That step cut, the members at Merion wanted to get rid of it and we supported that as long as it didn’t result in something unfair, which is why we are rounding off the entry to the rough,” Davis told GolfWorld magazine. “But bottom line, we always try to look at what’s unique about a golf course whether it’s Pinehurst No. 2 with the sandy areas or Oakmont with the fast greens. With Merion, even going back to Ben Hogan’s time, it has always been about the rough. The rough’s brutal. People will think we made it that way because (the course is) so short, but that’s the history of the course. I’m not going to go away from that.”
   Davis also told the magazine he wants the shortish East to look tough.
   “It’s what we want, absolutely, we want it to look intimidating,” he said. “We want players to feel that pressure to keep the ball in play. It’s going to be under 7,000 yards and, frankly, we want that. We think it will be neat to have that kind of yardage in this era.”
   Architect Tom Fazio renovated two of the fastest greens on the course, the 12th and 15th. Merion’s members felt the severe pitch of those two greens had limited the pin positions.
Fazio is the nephew of George Fazio, the Norristown native who was part of the three-way playoff along with Ben Hogan and Lloyd Mangrum, in the battle that resulted in Hogan’s epic comeback victory in the 1950 U.S. Open at Merion.
   When the Open returned to Merion in 1971 for the first time since Hogan’s 1950 win, the rough was indeed its major defense.
   How would I know that? Well, I was there. As a 16-year-old Merion caddy I was the forecaddie on the par-4 sixth hole at the 1971 Open. The rough was so deep in 1971, had I not been manning my station, they might still be looking for some of the balls that ended up missing the sixth fairway.
   In the days leading up to the 1971 U.S. Open, Merion East was almost unplayable for the average golfer. If a ball was hit over a hill and into the rough, the odds were maybe 40 percent it would be found.
   Merion was considered too short to hold an Open 40 years ago, although the critics were quieted when Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino finished tied at even-par 280 after 72 holes.
   In the aftermath of the U.S. victory in the 2009 Walker Cup Match at the East Course, Rickie Fowler, when asked if he thought the golf course was tough enough to hold a U.S. Open on, said, “They can make this golf course as tough as they want to.”
   And that came after a week of heavy rain had softened the course up considerably. So we shall see in, oh, about 404 days, won’t we?