Pano snags a second Orange Blossom Tour win by taking the Jones/Doherty Championship

   You know it’s getting kind of scary when Alexa Pano, the 14-year-old phenom from Lake Worth, Fla., is talking about how she didn’t quite have her best stuff moments after finishing off a hard-fought 1-up victory over Clemson product and aspiring professional Marisa Messana of Plantation, Fla. in Friday’s final of the Ione D. Jones/Doherty Women’s Amateur Championship at Coral Ridge Country Club in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

   It was the second Jones/Doherty title in three years for Pano, who captured the prestigious event on the annual Orange Blossom Tour of women’s amateur events each winter in South Florida for the first time in 2016 as a 12-year-old. She lost in the final a year ago to Meghan Stasi, the four-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion from Oakland Park, Fla.

   It was the 87^th playing of the Doherty and the 34^th edition of the Ione D. Jones for senior players, but the event is commonly referred to as the Jones/Doherty.

   The win caps off a spectacular five weeks of golf in South Florida for a favorite daughter of the region. The week before Christmas, Pano captured the first stop on the Orange Blossom Tour, the Women’s Dixie Amateur at Woodlands Country Club in Tamarac, Fla., beating a field that included some top-notch college players.

   After winning the 16-to-18 division in the Junior Honda Classic at PGA National Resort & Spa’s Champion Course in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., Pano was the runnerup to Florida State junior Amanda Doherty in the South Atlantic Women’s Amateur Championship, better known as The Sally, at Oceanside Country Club in Ormond Beach, Fla., another stop on the Orange Blossom Tour.

   She was right back at it this week in reclaiming the Jones/Doherty title she won two years ago. Pano was the qualifying medalist Monday with a 1-over-par 73 at Coral Ridge, a Robert Trent Jones design.    

   Maybe she was running out of gas – but considering Pano beat fellow teen phenom Lucy Li on the 18^th hole of a semifinal match and lost to Yealimi Noh on the 33^rd hole of a scheduled 36-hole final on the same day in last summer’s U.S. Girls’ Junior Amateur Championship at Poppy Hills Golf Course on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula, that doesn’t seem likely – still, she got the job done in Friday’s final against Massana.

   “It was a pretty tough day,” Pano told the Coral Ridge website. “I haven’t really played well this whole week, especially (Friday). It was just not my best. There were a couple of things that I did that just kind of held it together and helped me finish it off.”

   When Massana, a fixture in the Clemson starting lineup for four years, parred the seventh hole, she had a 2-up lead on Pano. But then Pano ripped off wins at nine, 10 and 11 to take a 1-up advantage.

Massana evened the match when she won the 12^th hole with a par. But Pano restored her 1-up advantage when she won the 13^th hole with a bogey and increased her lead to 2-up with four holes to play when she rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt at the 14^th.

   Massana kept battling and sent the match to the 18^th hole when she birdied the 17^th hole to cut Pano’s lead to 1-up.

   Massana then drilled a hybrid out of a bunker onto the green at the finishing hole, but her 30-foot birdie try came up just short. Pano left her approach short of the 18^th green, but she calmly got it up and down for a clinching par.

   Pano had a bye into Wednesday’s quarterfinals and she battled some windy conditions – she said she’s learned to enjoy the challenges of playing in the wind, hoo boy, even scarier still – to defeat Jamie Freedman of Miami Beach, who is coming off a solid college career at Nova Southeastern, 5 and 4.

   Pano then cruised to a 5 and 4 decision over Marie Arnoux of Miami in the semifinals.

   Massana had a tougher road, starting with a 3 and 2 victory over Dana Williams, another standout South Florida teen from Boca Raton who has qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open each of the last two summers and will start her college career at Auburn at the end of the summer.

   Massana then had to knock off the defending champion, Stasi, the 40-year-old South Jersey native who remains one of top mid-ams in the country. Stasi was exempt from qualifying as the defending champion and got a bye into the quarterfinals, but she spent her two days off trying to shake off the flu, which she couldn’t quite do.

   Despite not feeling her best, Stasi, who won the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match-Play Championship seven straight times when she was known as Meghan Bolger, still proved to be a tough customer, taking Massana to the final hole before falling, 2-up.

   Stasi won the last of her four U.S. Women’s Mid-Am titles in 2012, but she reached the quarterfinals in last summer’s edition at Norwood Hills Country Club in St. Louis.

   The win over Stasi earned Massana a semifinal showdown with another standout mid-am, Courtney McKim of Raleigh, N.C., a member of Alabama’s 2012 NCAA championship team. McKim lost in the round of 16 in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at Norwood Hills.

   Massana got past McKim, 3 and 2, to earn her shot for the championship against Pano.

   Not sure what is on the upcoming calendar for Pano, but she has accepted an invitation to play in the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur April 3 to 6. It will be an elite international field of women’s amateur golfers and Pano will likely be the youngest player in the field, certainly one of the youngest.

   The first two rounds of the 54-hole event will be played at the Champions Resort Golf Club in Augusta, Ga. with the top 30 and ties getting to tee it up in the final round on the big stage, Augusta National Golf Club, which will be in full Masters mode with the prestigious event coming up the following week.

   Making the top 30 would be a very attainable goal for Pano, who would make a triumphant return to Augusta National, where she has been a three-time Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals qualifier, winning the 10-11 division in 2016 and the 12-13 division in 2017.

   For the third year in a row Friday, the Senior Championship Flight – the 34^th Ione D. Jones Women’s Senior Amateur Championship – came down to a match between Lisa Schlesinger of Fort Myers, Fla. and Canadian Terrill Samuel and for third year in a row, Schlesinger captured the title with a 5 and 3 victory.

   Schlesinger, who turned 61 this week, has been a force at the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, earning medalist honors in qualifying in back-to-back years in 2011 and 2012.

   Samuel lost in the semifinals of last fall’s U.S. Senior Women’s Am at the Orchid Island Golf & Beach Club in Vero Beach, Fla. a year after falling to fellow Canadian – and Toronto area golfing buddy -- Judith Kyrinis in the final of the U.S. Senior Women’s Am at Waverly Country Club in Portland, Ore.

   The Senior First Flight title went to Mary Jane Hiestand of Naples, Fla., who claimed a 2 and 1 victory over Andreas Kraus of Baltimore in the final.

   Hiestand, at age 58, made an epic run to the final of the 2017 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur – not the U.S. Women’s Senior Amateur, the Mid-Am – at Champions Golf Club’s Cypress Creek Course in Houston before falling to Kelsey Chugg. One of her victims along the was Jones/Doherty semifinalist McKim, whom she edged in 19 holes in the quarterfinals at Champions.

   In the Senior Second Flight final, Sylvie Van Molle of France rolled to a 6 and 5 decision over Maggie Brady of Washington, D.C.

   The title in the Senior Third Flight, a 36-hole stroke-play event, went to Katherine Moore-Lilly of Longboat Key, Fla. with a 180 total. Kay Tyler of Springfield, Va. was four shots behind Moore-Lilly in second at 184.