This blogger's conclusion after reviewing 2018: The kids are all right

   Looking back at another year of blogging and a little looping at Stonewall …

   The tee times for the opening round of qualifying for the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at the Poppy Hills Golf Course on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula were out.

   I always like to check them, mostly just to see if any of the alternates from any of the local qualifiers that I had blogged about had managed to sneak into the field. It was in the midst of that process that I had one of those “Wait, what?” moments.

   Sydney Yermish, Wynnewood, Pa.? How could a kid who was just starting to break 40 while competing in the 12-and-under, coed, nine-hole division of the Philadelphia Section PGA Junior Tour the previous fall have a starting time in the most prestigious event for junior girls in the world?

   I was pretty sure Sydney was the daughter of Dana Yermish, whom I had been in contact with during the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Rolling Green Golf Club because she was a co-chair of the group of Rolling Green members who had staged the event. I still had Dana Yermish’s e-mail address and, with mom’s help, I was able to recount Sydney Yermish’s road to the U.S. Girls’ Junior in a post from the opening day of the tournament.

   At age 12, Sydney Yermish had carded a 74 in a Girls’ Junior qualifier at Old York Country Club at Chesterfield in Chesterfield, N.J. to punch her ticket to Poppy Hills. I have covered some very good players, guys and gals, who have come up just a little short in the cauldron of a USGA qualifier.

   It is one round against a field filled with equally talented youngsters vying for two or three spots in the biggest junior event in the world. Yet Yermish made it in her first try.

   Yermish struggled at Poppy Hills, posting rounds of 86 and 87, although she carded a respectable 39 on her final nine holes.

   I bring up Sydney Yermish’s trip to the U.S. Girls’ Junior to highlight a larger point about 2018 because I can only conclude after this year of blogging that the kids are all right.

   Yes, this blog is largely devoted to the up-and-coming young golfers, but they just were so impressive in 2018. And in many cases, they are better at a younger age than ever before.

   Yermish had turned 13 by the time she booked herself a spot in another of the more high-profile events in junior golf, the Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals, broadcast by The Golf Channel the Sunday before the Masters. It has become the highly anticipated kickoff to Masters week with past champions coming out with the sun rising over Augusta National to watch the future of their game unfold.

   Yermish captured the Girls 12-13 division in a regional competition at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. behind a first-place finish with the driver in her hands to earn a trip to Augusta National next spring.

   Some guys who I’m sure Yermish knows well comprised the Delaware 1 team that advanced to the PGA Junior League Championship, presented by National Car Rental, at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. in November.

   The group was captained by Dave Seeman, a PGA professional at Hartefeld National in Chester County right on the border with Delaware, and coached by Shawn Gross.

   The group was largely comprised of players who had developed their games on the Philadelphia Junior Tour, including two guys who would earn the Graham Company Player of the Year honors on the Junior Tour a few weeks later, Win Thomas in the 13-to-15 age group and Nicholas Gross – pretty sure he’s the pride and joy of coach Shawn Gross – among the nine-holers, the same division from which Yermish sprang in 2018.

   Their teammates included Adrian Jordan, Matthew Normand, Henry Stone, Michael Maslanka, Zac Antao, Jack Homer and Jax Puskar.

   Thomas won eight times on the Junior Tour's wraparound 2017-'18 season, including the overall title in the Junior Tour Championship as one of the youngest competitors in the field.

   If Yermish needs any tips on what to expect at Augusta National, she can check with Gross. His 2018 included a third-place finish in the Boys 10-11 division in the Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals. He won a whopping 20 times on the Junior Tour in the 2017-’18 Junior Tour campaign.

   A Yermish pal, Angelina Tolentino of Mount Laurel, N.J., was the Junior Tour’s Graham Company Player of the Year in the girls 13-to-15 division. The two of them teamed up to take a shot at qualifying for next spring’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship. They didn’t make it, but carded a very respectable 4-over 76 at Kennett Square Golf & Country Club. Not bad for a couple of 13-year-olds.

   I was able to show up at several stops on the Pennsylvania high school postseason trail, including the Central League and District One championships at Turtle Creek Golf Club, the PIAA East Regional at Golden Oaks Golf Club and the PIAA Championship at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort.

   And many of the names I had come across in local, regional and national junior events during the summer were prominent on the scholastic scene.

   Palmer Jackson, a senior at Franklin Regional who plays out of Hannastown Country Club in Greensburg, had earned a spot in the match-play bracket in the U.S. Junior Amateur at Baltusrol Golf Club and played all four rounds in the Boys Junior PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky.

   So it wasn’t a huge surprise to see the Notre Dame-bound Jackson deliver Franklin Regional its first PIAA individual champion when he captured the Class AAA crown with a brilliant final round of 4-under 67.

   Central Bucks East senior Patrick Sheehan, who had captured the District One Class AAA crown a couple of weeks earlier, finished in a tie for third place in his first look at Heritage Hills. Like Jackson, Sheehan played all four rounds in the Boys Junior PGA at Valhalla.

   Sheehan had defeated Holy Ghost Prep’s Liam Hart and Central Bucks East’s Luca Jezzeny in a playoff for the district title at Turtle Creek. Hart, the 2017 Class AAA state champion, shared third with Sheehan at Heritage Hills.

   Jezzeny, who had a strong summer that included trips to both the U.S. Junior Amateur at Baltusrol and the Boys Junior PGA at Valhalla, finished eighth at Heritage Hills.

   District One had two brother acts at Heritage Hills as Norristown’s Caleb Ryan, who capped his scholastic career by making it to the state championship for a third straight year, and brother Joshua were both in the field for the second year in a row and Unionville’s Bennink twins, Connor and Will, had strong showings.

   Caleb Ryan, the Philadelphia Junior Tour’s Sam Penecale Scoring Average Leader in the 16-to-18 division, and Connor Bennink finished in a tie for sixth place, Will Bennink finished in a tie for 12^th place and Joshua Ryan finished in a tie for 19^th place.

   The Benninks couldn’t quite lead Unionville to a second straight PIAA Class AAA team title, the Indians finishing as the runnerup to Pittsburgh Central Catholic. But it was a pretty nice run for the best team in District One the past two falls.

   A face that kept turning up in every stop I made along the postseason high school trail was that of Harriton left-hander Andrew Wallace. Short of stature but long on heart, Wallace, betrayed by a driver that broke in the middle of the second round at districts, had a share of the lead after the opening round at Heritage Hills before struggling in the second round and finishing in a tie for 15^th place.

   The runnerup to Jackson at Heritage Hills was Pittsburgh Central Catholic’s Jimmy Meyers, who would lead the Vikings to the team title the next day, and Greater Latrobe’s Brady Pevarnik finished in a tie for ninth place at Heritage Hills. Pevarnik, like Jackson a product of the junior program at Hannastown, led the Pennsylvania Amateur at Johnstown’s famed Sunnehanna Golf Club for two rounds before finishing tied for third.

   Sheehan, Meyers and Pevarnik will all be taking their talents to Penn State, so that’s three pretty good gets for Nittany Lions head coach Greg Nye.

   He was off his game a little at Heritage Hills, finishing in a tie for 12^th in Class AAA, but Central York’s Carson Bacha, an Auburn recruit, was brilliant in winning the individual title a week earlier in the East Regional at Golden Oaks and in capturing the Pennsylvania Junior Boys’ Championship at Hershey Country Club’s East Course in the summer.

   The Class AA crown went to William Mirams from Notre Dame in East Stroudsburg. Mirams, playing out of the Shawnee Inn Golf Resort, had reached the final of the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Junior Boys’ Championship in the summer.

   Devon Prep’s Ryan McCabe, the District 12 champion, got a share of second place behind Mirams at Heritage Hills. McCabe was prominent on Philly Junior Tour leaderboards all summer.

   The Bert Linton Inter-Ac League Championship at Sunnybrook Golf Club was held the same day as the final day of the PIAA Championships, so I couldn’t get there, which means I missed Malvern Prep’s senior captain Andrew Curran firing the round of his life, a brilliant 6-under 66 that gave him the title by seven shots.

   Nobody follows the Inter-Ac like this blog does and Curran’s stunning round probably eased a little of the disappointment he felt from the failure of the Friars and everybody else in the league to figure out a way to stop The Haverford School from claiming its second straight league title.

   It’s not that Malvern Prep and Episcopal Academy, which got a share of second place with the Friars, weren’t good teams. It’s just that the Fords were that good and that deep.

   Haverford School had seven players – A.J. Aivazoglou, Peter Garno, Mac Costin, Sam Walker, David Hurly, Charlie Baker and Jake Maddaloni – finish among the top 12 in the individual points standings compiled over the course of the six invitationals that make up the Inter-Ac’s regular season.

   The Fords also rolled to the title in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association Championship at Gulph Mills Golf Club with the individual crown going to Curran’s fellow Malvern Prep senior Matt Civitella.

   The Inter-Ac girls still play in the spring and for the sixth year in a row I made it to the championship held at Gulph Mills for the third year in a row. And for the second year in a row and the third time in those six years I’ve been there, Agnes Irwin’s Kaitlyn Lees captured the title.

   Before she headed off to Dartmouth to start her college career, Lees would win the Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ Championship at Hershey East for the third time in four years and play four rounds in the Girls Junior PGA Championship at Kearney Hill Golf Links in Lexington, Ky.

   Notre Dame’s nine-year run as the Inter-Ac champion was halted by Episcopal Academy. The Churchwomen were led by freshman Lauren Jones, who finished third behind Lees and her Agnes Irwin teammate Meghan Fahey, in the individual championship.

   Lees will be joined at Dartmouth next summer by Samantha Yao, who capped her brilliant scholastic career at Conestoga by finishing in a tie for fifth in the PIAA Class AAA Championship.

   Yao’s pal, Downingtown East’s Liddie McCook, finished tied for 11^th at Heritage Hills and led the Vikings to a runnerup finish in the Class AAA team competition. McCook will play college golf at Monmouth.

   A couple of promising youngsters burst onto the scholastic scene in the fall as West Chester East freshman Victoria Kim denied Yao a third straight District One title by winning that championship at Turtle Creek and Pennsbury sophomore Jade Gu was the East Regional winner a week later at Golden Oaks.

   Gu finished alone in seventh at Heritage Hills while Kim shared 11^th place with McCook.

   Haverford High was represented in the state championship by sophomore Riley Quartermain, who finished alone in 14^th place in her first crack at Heritage Hills.

   A couple of very talented youngsters from Delaware continued to impress in 2018 as Phoebe Brinker   earned a trip to the U.S. Girls’ Junior at Poppy Hills and Jennifer Cleary, like Lees, played four rounds in the Girls Junior PGA at Kearney Hill.

   Brinker of Archmere Academy earned a spot in the match-play bracket at Poppy Hills before falling in the first round. Cleary plays out of Tower Hill.

   Rylie Heflin is from Avondale, but she is a scholastic teammate of Cleary’s at Tower Hill in Delaware. Heflin was the runnerup to Lees in defense of the Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ Championship Heflin won in 2017. Cleary, who plays out of Applecross Country Club, finished sixth in the state Junior Girls’ at Hershey East.

   I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a couple of guys who finished their junior careers in style last summer.

   Former Conestoga standout Ryan Tall went on a remarkable match-play run when he reached the semifinals of the BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club and then rolled to GAP’s Junior Boys’ title, defeating Mirams in the final at Blue Bell Country Club. On his way to Lafayette, Tall went 7-1 in two highly competitive match-play events.

   Brian Isztwan, the Inter-Ac’s best player in his final two seasons at Penn Charter, has been a favorite of mine since I looped for him in the 2017 Christman Cup at Stonewall’s North Course. He capped a strong junior career by earning a trip to the U.S. Junior Amateur at Baltusrol. He failed to make match play, but Harvard got itself a good one in that guy.

   The national scene was equally rich in standout youngsters. I have been a Lucy Li fan ever since the California Kid lit up Rolling Green Golf Club with rounds of 67 and 68 in qualifying for match play in the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur at 13.

   In a stretch of eight weeks or so this summer, Li was incandescent, even in defeat. She was the darling of the Fox Sports crew that broadcast the Curtis Cup Match at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y. And to the hard-core golf fans who showed up to root on the US of A to a rousing 17-3 victory over Great Britain & Ireland as well, I’m sure.

   Li had some company in the phenom department in the Girls Junior PGA at Kearney Hill as fellow Cali girl Yealimi Noh blazed her way to the title with a 24-under 264 total. Another teen star, Floridian Alexa Pano, was fourth at Kearney Hill at 17-under 271 while Li settled for a share of sixth at 13-under 275.

   Li followed that up with a remarkable 9-under 62 in the opening round of qualifying for match play in the U.S. Girls’ Junior at Poppy Hills.

   By the time a foggy week at Poppy Hills reached its final day, Li and Pano were matched in the semifinals with Noh in the other semi. Pano pulled out a 1-up decision over Li and she and Noh went at it for 33 more holes in the final with the red-hot Noh claiming a 4 and 3 victory. Pano played 51 holes and Noh 49.

   Noh, who turned 17 the week after the U.S. Girls’ Junior, will bypass college golf and plans to turn pro at some point in 2019.

   Li was at it again a couple of weeks later, firing a brilliant 6-under 65 in the second round of qualifying in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at The Golf Club of Tennessee to get a share of medalist honors. Pano, who was the leader after the opening round of qualifying with a sparkling 66, and Noh also made the match-play bracket.

   Li made it all the way to the semifinals at The Golf of Tennessee before falling to her Curtis Cup teammate and eventual U.S. Women’s Amateur champion Kristen Gillman, 1-up, in a tremendous match.

   On the boys side, two guys dominated the junior scene with Cole Hammer and Akshay Bhatia hooking up in the semifinals of the U.S. Junior Amateur at Baltusrol. Hammer, making his junior swan song, fell, 4 and 2, to Bhatia in a riveting match before Bhatia dropped a 1-up decision to  Michael Thorbjornsen in a hard-fought 36-hole final that went the distance.

   A week later, Bhatia nervelessly bumped a little chip shot from the deep rough behind the 18^th green at Valahalla and watched the ball trickle down the slope and into the hole for an eagle that gave him his second straight title in the Boys Junior PGA. It was about as good a shot to win a golf tournament as you’ll ever see. Like Noh, Bhatia plans to bypass college golf and turn pro.

   Hammer arrived on the Monterey Peninsula for the U.S. Amateur fresh off an impressive win in the Western Amateur at Sunset Ridge Country Club in Northfield, Ill., 72 holes of qualifying and four matches.

   The Texan added a 4-under 68 at Spyglass Hill Golf Course to his opening round of 2-under 69 at the iconic Pebble Beach Golf Links to get a share of medalist honors. Hammer made it all the way to the semifinals before falling to eventual champion Viktor Hovland, a Norwegian who added a U.S. Amateur title to the NCAA team crown he helped Oklahoma State claim in the spring.

   I didn’t check in much on the first fall of Hammer’s college career at Texas, but I’m sure he’ll be a key figure for the Longhorns in the spring of 2019.

   There weren’t any big tournaments at Stonewall in 2018, but I did manage to hook up again with Jeff Frazier and Brent Will, a couple of Harrisburg area guys, for the Fall Scramble.

   I was, at the very least, an effective good-luck charm when Frazier, a talented left-hander who has played in, I believe, seven U.S. Mid-Amateur Championships, and the long-hitting Will won the Fall Scramble in 2016. I watched in awe as they carded a brilliant 8-under 62 on a chilly day with a fierce wind on the Old Course and added another 62 in the second round at the North Course.

   They didn’t quite have the same magic this year, although they never stopped competing in a second round that was played in temperatures in the low 40s, an occasional drizzle and a steady 20 mph wind. The occasional drizzle was the leftovers of an overnight drencher that dropped upwards of two inches of rain on the golf course.

   The weather? Yeah, let’s not talk about the weather in 2018. It was not good.

   What was good were all the tremendously talented young kids who proved that the future of golf is bright.

   Did I miss somebody in this year-ender? Undoubtedly, because there are just so many talented youngsters out there. But the beauty of the blog is that if you finished in the top 10 in a Junior Tour event in 2018, you’re in here somewhere.

   And I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next Sydney Yermish who comes storming out of the Junior Tour nine-holers onto a national stage in 2019. She proved it can happen.

Bina comes up just short in third-place finish in Dixie Amateur

   I’ve covered a lot of high school golf over the years and sometimes you can stump a young golfer by simply asking him or her to go back over their round. Birdies and bogeys, at least. A lot of times you get a blank stare, although eventually you can usually piece the round together.

   But hey, they’re high school kids and they might be talking to a reporter they don’t know for the first time in their lives.

   There were exceptions, of course. And one of them was Carey Bina, one of the many standouts to come through Andy Achenbach's Radnor program. Bina finished in a tie for 16^th in the 2011 PIAA Championship as a junior, a shot better than big brother Kavian, who finished in the group tied for 19^th.

   So, I was more than a little interested when I checked in on last week’s Dixie Amateur in Coral Springs, Fla. and saw that Bina was very much in contention right from the start as he fired a brilliant 6-under-par 66 at Heron Bay Country Club in Tuesday’s opening round.

   Bina stayed atop the leaderboard through two more rounds on the tough Eagle Trace Golf Club layout as conditions got increasingly difficult before coming up just short in Friday’s final round. Bina bogeyed the last two holes for a final round of 8-over 80 that left him a shot out of a playoff for the title.

   Jonathan Keppler, a redshirt junior at Florida State from Marietta, Ga., who trailed Bina by four shots heading into the final round, carded a final round of 3-over 75 and won in a playoff over Linus Lo, a redshirt sophomore at Western Kentucky from Heathrow, Fla. Lo, who had been Bina’s closest pursuer through three rounds, finished up with a 77 as he and Keppler both landed on 3-over 291.

   Bina was that rare youngster who was a treat to interview after a round. He remembered every shot. He didn’t just remember each shot, he could tell you what his approach was to the shot, why he took the club he chose if he was between clubs.

   And he didn’t just remember the good shots. He gave you even more detail when he made a mistake as if he was already mentally fixing it in his head so he wouldn’t repeat the miscue.

   The post by Julie Williams of AmateurGolf.com after he had matched par in the second round at Eagle Trace with a 72 to remain in the lead was pure Carey Bina.

   I knew Bina had planned to go to Wake Forest, but I knew he had no shot to make the golf team there. At some point I ran into him and he was planning to transfer to Elon, still uncertain if he was going to play college golf.

   Turned out he became the president of the club team at Elon. Who knew that there was such a thing as the National College Club Golf Association? Turns out one of the four players who finished tied for fifth in the Dixie Amateur, Tyler Stahle, was the senior captain of a Villanova club team that played in the NCCGA fall national championship in December of last year in Las Vegas. Again, who knew?

   I also knew that Bina had been doing some volunteer work with the Golf Association of Philadelphia when he wasn’t competing and showing up on leaderboards at some of GAP’s big events.

   At 23, Bina is spending the winter in South Florida, working when and where he can and hoping to figure out a way to get to the PGA Tour. It is the third time he’s teed it up in the Dixie Amateur. It is not the conventional route to the big time, but it is Bina’s goal. And he still has a dual degree in mathematics and Spanish from Elon to fall back on.

   The highlight of Bina’s even-par 72 in the second round at Eagle Trace was a 3-wood from 265 yards away at the par-5 10^th that finished a foot from the hole for a tap-in eagle. He remained atop the leaderboard with a 2-over 74 in the third round.

   Bina’s lead disappeared when he made a quadruple bogey 7 on the par-3 seventh in the final round. But nobody was going low in near gale-force winds and he was still very much in the hunt when he birdied the 10^th. But bogeys at the 11^th, 14^th, 17^th and 18^th holes on his way home left him a shot out of the playoff at 4-over 292.

   Still, he had put himself in position to win the tournament.

   “I’m satisfied with how I played and I know as much as I believed that I was going to win this … you learn from everything,” Bina told AmateurGolf.com’s Williams. “I think this is good because I haven’t been in this position before at such a competitive event. I’m definitely going to learn how to handle myself coming down the last couple holes.”

   Jamie Wilson, a junior at South Carolina out of Mount Pleasant, S.C., was another three shots behind Bina in fourth at 7-over 295. His back-to-back 77s in the third and fourth rounds gives you a pretty good idea how tough Eagle Trace was playing Thursday and Friday.

   It looks like Stahle, the former Villanova club team captain, is out of Andover, Mass. He finished up with back-to-back 75s in the third and fourth rounds to get his piece of fifth at 9-over 297, two shots behind Wilson.

   Joining Stahle in the foursome tied for fifth were Michael Cotton, a graduate assistant coach at South Alabama who finished with a solid 2-over 74, Nicholas Cummings of Weston, Mass., who struggled to a  final-round 81 and Grant Godfrey, a sophomore at Toledo out of Delaware, Ohio who finished up with a 77.

   Meanwhile, the Women’s Dixie Amateur was being contested simultaneously at Woodlands Country Club’s East Course in Tamarac, Fla. and Alexa Pano, the remarkable 14-year-old from nearby Lake Worth, Fla. shrugged off the tough conditions to fire a final round of 3-under 69 and hold on for a one-shot victory over Kent State’s Michaela Finn, a senior from Sweden.

   Pano first got on my radar when she won the defunct PDQ / Philadelphia Runner Junior at Saucon Valley’s Weyhill Course as a 12-year-old in just her second American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) start in 2016. A little less than a month earlier as an 11-year-old, Pano had teed it up in the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Rolling Green Golf Club, although she failed to qualify for match play.

   With apologies to all those guys who teed it up in a U.S. Open sectional qualifier – known as “Golf’s Longest Day” – but golf’s longest day in 2018 was authored by Pano. The U.S. Girls’ Junior at Poppy Hills Golf Course on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula was plagued by fog delays the whole week.

   Pano edged 15-year-old Lucy Li, coming off an outstanding showing as a member of the winning U.S. Curtis Cup team and ranked in the top 10 in Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), 1-up, in a morning semifinal.

   Pano and fellow finalist Yealimi Noh, who would turn 17 the following week, were offered the opportunity to play half the scheduled 36-hole final that afternoon and come back and finish it the next day. Nah, let’s just play, was the response. By the time Noh, who was in the middle of a stretch of spectacular golf, finished off a 4 and 3 victory, Pano had played 51 holes.

   The Women’s Dixie Amateur is part of the unofficial Orange Blossom Tour for women’s amateur golfers each winter and Pano has taken full advantage of her proximity to the events to gain some invaluable experience against top-notch amateur competition. It was Pano’s fourth start in the Women’s Dixie Amateur, including a tie for sixth two years ago when she was a 12-year-old.

   Pano lost in the final of the Ione D. Jones / Doherty Amateur Championship to fellow Floridian Meghan Stasi, the South Jersey native who has won the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship four times. Pano won the Jones / Doherty two years ago.

   Pano opened the Women’s Dixie Amateur with a 3-under 69 in relatively benign conditions and added rounds of 1-over 73 and even-par 72 before finishing up with her 3-under 69 to finish at 5-under 283.

   Still holding out hope that Pano will still be an amateur when the Curtis Cup Match comes to Merion Golf Club’s East Course in 2022. She doesn’t turn 18 until later that summer, so we’ll see.

   Finn surged into the lead on the strength of a 5-under 67 in the second round and added a 1-over 73 in the third round. Her 2-under 70 left her a shot behind Pano at 4-under 284.

   Kenzie Wright, a junior at Alabama out of Frisco, Texas, carded a 1-under 71 in the final round to finish alone in third at even-par 288, four shots behind Finn. Wright transferred to Tuscaloosa from SMU.

   Tuan-Yu Chiang – the native of Taiwan goes by Erica for a first name on the Baylor roster – grabbed the lead after three rounds with a 4-under 68 Thursday before a final-round 77 left her alone in fourth at 2-over 290. Chiang was a junior college standout at Seminole State College before joining the powerful Baylor program.

   Kelly Whaley, the senior leader at North Carolina, headed a group of three players who finished tied for fifth at 3-over 291. Whaley has always been listed as being from Farmington, Conn., but the Women’s Dixie Amateur results list her as being from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., which means she’s probably hanging out with her mom Suzy, who was recently elected as the first woman president of the PGA of America and is probably spending a lot of her time at PGA headquarters these days.

   Kelly Whaley grabbed the opening-round lead at Woodlands with an opening-round 68 on the East Course. She sandwiched a pair of 76s around a 1-under 71 in her final three rounds to land at 291.

Whaley will return to Chapel Hill this spring with every intention of leading the Tar Heels back to the NCAA Championship at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark. after they came up just short of reaching the Finals in last spring’s San Francisco Regional.

   Also in the group at 291 was Michigan State freshman Valery Plata, a native of Colombia who finished up with a 2-over 74.

   Plata was the qualifying medalist in a Golf Association of Philadelphia-administered qualifier for the U.S. Girls’ Junior at the Steel Club and went on to reach the quarterfinals at Poppy Hills before falling to Pano.

   Rounding out the trio at 291 was Kerttu Hiltunen, a junior standout from Finland whose week at the Woodlands was highlighted by a 3-under 69 in the third round.

   A week earlier Eagle Trace hosted the Dixie Senior Amateur Championship and Michael Hughett of Owasso, Okla. fired a final round of 4-under 68 to capture the title with a 1-under 215 total. T.J. Brudzinski of Columbus, Ohio also closed with a 4-under 68, but came up a shot behind Hughett and settled for runnerup honors at even-par 216.

   Hughett’s final round featured five birdies against a lone bogey.

   Doug Hanzel of Savannah, Ga., a quarterfinalist in last summer’s U.S. Senior Amateur Championship, was in contention all the way. A final-round 70 left him alone in third at 2-over 218, two shots behind Brudzinski. Hanzel fell to Sean Knapp, the Pittsburgh area native who was the 2017 U.S. Senior Amateur champion, in the quarterfinals of this year’s championship at Eugene Country Club.

   Scotty Scott of Hoschton, Ga. had the best round of the day in the final round with a 5-under 67 to finish fourth at 4-over 220. Ken Kinkopf of Dublin, Ohio was another two shots behind Scott in fifth at 6-over 222 after a final round of 2-over 74.

   Adam Armogast, a Pine Valley Golf Club and Seminole Golf Club looper who, I’m told, was a mini-tour legend back in the day, finished ninth at 230 after a final-round 76. Armogast earned a trip to the U.S. Senior Amateur at Eugene in a GAP-administered qualifier at Tavistock Country Club last summer and when he got there, he qualified for a berth in the match-play bracket and won a match.

   Edward Turner of Richardson, Texas was a runaway winner of the Super Senior division. A final round of 3-over 75 gave him a 4-over 220 total. Turner took control of the tournament with a 1-under 71 in the second round.

   Marc Fried, who, from what I can tell off the Internet, is a northern Ohioan, finished seven shots back in second at 11-over 227. Fried posted a 3-over 75 in the final round.