Kan finishes in a tie for 33rd at Harder Hall

   Aurora Kan, who won the 2010 PIAA championship as a senior at Chichester, started gearing up for the last half of her senior season at Purdue by finishing in a tie for 33^rd at the Harder Hall Women’s Invitational, part of a prestigious series of amateur events for women held in January each year in Florida.

   The first stop on the series was Harder Hall Golf Club in Sebring, Fla. and Kan put together rounds of 77, 82, 81 and 82 for a 322 total.

   The chairman of the Harder Hall, which concluded Sunday, is Carol Semple Thompson, the World Golf Hall of Famer from western Pennsylvania who has won the Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur title something like 22 times, give or take a championship.

   Kan, a three-time Daily Times Player of the Year during her brilliant scholastic career at Chichester, wasn’t the only Boilermaker in the Harder Hall field. Sophomore August Kim, a native Floridian, had a strong showing, firing rounds of 75, 78, 74 and 79 for a 306 total that left her in 11^th place.

   Another familiar name in the field was that of reigning Philadelphia Women’s Amateur champion Meghan Stasi, one of the top Mid-Amateur players in the country. Stasi had rounds of 80, 80, 78 and 76 to finish in a tie for 21^st at 314.

   Stasi is based in Florida now, but took a trip home last summer and added an eighth Philly Women’s Amateur title to the seven straight she won from 1999 to 2005 when the South Jersey native was known as Meghan Bolger.

   The Harder Hall title went to 16-year-ol d Nelly Korda, sister of Jessica, a grizzled LPGA Tour winner and veteran at age 21. The Kordas are the daughters of Petr Korda, a former Australian Open men’s singles tennis champion. Nelly Korda had rounds of 74, 75, 73 and 69 for a 3-over 291 total that was three shots better than runnerup Allison Emrey, a senior at Wake Forest.

   The Florida series of women’s amateur events continues this week with the Sally, shorthand for the South Atlantic Amateur Championship held at Oceanside Country Club in Ormond Beach, Fla. and next week’s Jones/Doherty Women’s and Senior Women’s Amateur Championship, which is staged at Coral Ridge Country Club in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

   Hey, it beats the heck out of the sub-freezing temperatures that we’ve been enduring.