It’s been a pretty successful run at the scholastic level
for Radnor senior Brynn Walker.
She was the missing piece that the Raiders added to a girls
team that had been the PIAA runnerup in the team competition in 2011 that put
them over the top in 2012.
Walker was an individual qualifier that year as well, but
did not earn a medal. Still, she left the Heritage Hills Golf Resort along with
her teammates with a state medal of golden hue.
Radnor couldn’t get past rival Mount St. Joseph in the
District One Tournament the next year, but Walker again qualified for the state
tournament individually and earned a fifth-place medal in Class AAA that year.
She also earned All-Delco honors for the first time.
Walker wasted little time making her college choice in the
winter following her sophomore season, deciding she would take her talents to
Chapel Hill, N.C. and the University of North Carolina.
Following a monster summer during which she qualified for
both the U.S. Girls’ Junior and U.S. Amateur championships, Walker followed up
a victory in the East Regional with a PIAA Class AAA championship, beating
Canon-McMillan’s Lauren Waller in a playoff. That also made her the 2014-2015 Daily Times Player of the Year.
Walker tees off Monday morning at the Heritage Hills Golf
Resort for her fourth and final go at the state tournament. Despite finishing
in a tie for third at the District One Tournament and tied for second last week
at the East Regional, Walker will be the favorite.
When I interviewed her last spring for the Player of the
Year story, she said nobody can put more pressure on her than she puts on
herself. Walker has hit the ball fantastically the last two weeks, but her
putter has not been cooperating. Her composure, tested to the maximum, has
never wavered. It’s a pretty impressive thing to see in a high school senior.
Walker’s chief competition will come from one of her best
friends, Council Rock North senior Madelein Herr, and from her teammate, Radnor
junior Gabby Kim. Herr won the district title and Kim was the medalist at last
week’s regional at Golden Oaks Golf Club and is having a breakout postseason.
If one of those three don’t win the state title, look for
Coatesville’s Sammie Staudt, who shared second with Walker at Golden Oaks, or
Owen J. Roberts’ Maddie Sager, who lost to Herr in a playoff at districts, as
logical contenders. It’s been since 2007 that a player not from District One
has won the girls big-school title. Expect that streak to continue.
In the midst of the scholastic postseason last year, Walker
and Herr took a stab at qualifying for the inaugural U.S. Amateur Four-Ball
Championship, which was to be staged the following May at Bandon Dunes in
Oregon.
Well, they qualified all right. And they proved to be quite
a team, qualifying for match play and making it all the way to the semifinals.
It took a team of Hannah O’Sullivan, who would win the U.S. Women’s Amateur in
the summer of 2015, and Robynn Ree, to finally stop them. It was some pretty
remarkable stuff from a couple of high school juniors and they even got some
face time on FS1 when their quarterfinal match was aired in prime time. Walker
and Herr can’t wait to get to Streamsong in Florida next May to give the
Four-Ball another shot.
As Herr’s dad Eric, who accompanied them on the trip to
Oregon, said at the District One Tournament a couple of weeks ago, “they really
ham-and-egged it unbelievably well.” This being a golf blog, I don’t have to
explain what that means.
They’re in the same group for the first round Monday and I
suspect they’re happy about that.
Radnor hasn’t been able to field a girls team the last
two seasons, so Walker became a welcome addition to a coed team that won the
District One Class AAA team title two weeks ago. That means Walker’s stay at
Heritage Hills will extend to Wednesday’s team competition.
I’ve noted before that Walker seems to thrive in a team
environment. In addition to the PIAA girls title in 2012 and the quite
successful partnership with Herr in the Four-Ball, Walker teamed with Aurora
Kan, the 2010 PIAA champion at Chichester and former Purdue standout, and
former Penn State standout Ellen Ceresko to help Team Pennsylvania finish third
in the U.S. Women’s State Team Championship in September in Cape Girardeau, Mo. North Carolina is getting a great teammate.
St. Joseph’s Prep is back to defend its PIAA Class AAA team
title, but Radnor, with Walker and Kim and Michael Sydnes and whoever else
Radnor coach Andy Achenbach picks to fill out his five-person roster will be
pretty tough.
When Heritage Hills debuted as the site of the state
tournament in 2002, Radnor junior Adam Cohan became the Raiders’ first
individual state champion. It was the beginning of a very successful run in
York County for the Raiders golf program.
Cohan finished in a tie for second with Strath Haven junior
Conrad Von Borsig the following year. When a team championship was added to the
state golf program, the Radnor boys showed up in 2006 and won the inaugural
championship on a brutally cold and windy day in York County. Three years
later, Jackie Calamaro won a PIAA girls title. Three years after that, the
Radnor girls won the team title and then last year Walker emerged as the Class
AAA state champion.
Walker’s high school career will come to an end there this
week and it won’t surprise me one bit if the Radnor golf program isn’t
celebrating some kind of great accomplishment once again at Heritage Hills.
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