Walker comes up short of berth in match-play bracket in U.S. Women's Amateur at Woodmont

   Brynn Walker, who won back-to-back PIAA Class AAA Championships in 2014 and 2015 at Radnor High, never really got it going in qualifying for match play in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md.

   The closing stretch at Woodmont has appeared to play really tough during the two rounds of qualifying, which were separated by a day for Hurricane Isaias to roar through and do its thing.

   Walker, who plays out of St. Davids Golf Club, started on Woodmont’s back nine in Wednesday’s second round and her bid to earn a spot in the U.S. Women’s Amateur match-play bracket for a second straight year disappeared with five straight bogeys beginning at the 14^th hole and concluding with the 18^th hole.

   It led to a 5-over-par 77, which, combined with an opening-round 76 Monday, left Walker with a 9-over 153 total and three shots out of a bulky 15-player playoff for the final six berths in match play, which gets under way Thursday.

   For Walker, as for most of America, it’s been a strange year. She graduated from North Carolina in May, but the final couple months of her college golf career were stolen by the coronavirus pandemic.

   The original plan for this summer was for Walker, armed with limited status on the Symetra Tour, to turn pro and work through LPGA Q-School with hopes of advancing to the Q-Series. Well, the pandemic blew that game plan out of the water.

   Instead, Walker will return to Chapel Hill for a post-grad year, although the fall portion of the golf schedule already seems to be in jeopardy. I’m sure Walker was shaking off a little rust, but she seems to have been grateful for an opportunity to tee it up in her fourth straight U.S. Women’s Amateur and fifth overall.

   Hopefully, we get some kind of a handle on this coronavirus in time for some college golf next spring. The Symetra Tour status Walker earned by reaching Stage II of Q-School in 2019 should still be there next summer.

   An incoming Atlantic Coast Conference freshman, Duke recruit Phoebe Brinker, who lost her senior season at Archmere Academy to the pandemic, apparently arrived in Rockville ready to go.

   Brinker, the niece of Suzy Whaley, the president of the PGA of America, matched par with a really steady, patient 72 Wednesday to finish in a tie for second in qualifying at 2-under 142, just two shots behind medalist Rachel Heck, the Memphis, Tenn. junior standout who will join the powerhouse Stanford program later this month.

   Brinker’s opening round Monday was interrupted by a thunderstorm for a couple of hours, but she went back out and completed a solid 2-under 70.

   Woodmont seems to have played a little tougher Wednesday than it did Monday, but Brinker, playing like a grizzled veteran, opened her round with 14 straight pars. That kind of consistency is going to be tough for an opponent to look at in match play.

   Brinker, who started on the 10^th tee Wednesday, finally halted her par streak with a birdie at the sixth hole, but immediately gave that shot back with a bogey at the seventh.

   It’s been nearly three years since Brinker, Jennifer Cleary, who will join the Virginia program later this month, and Georgetown sophomore Esther Park helped Delaware finish second in the final edition of the USGA State Team Championship on the Sunrise Course at The Club at Las Campanas in Santa Fe, N.M. Brinker was the runnerup in the overall individual scoring, a pretty strong showing for a youngster on a pretty big stage. Clearly, she was not intimidated.

   Heck captured medalist honors by adding a solid 1-under 71 to her opening-round 69 for a 4-under 140 total. It wasn’t a perfect round as Heck had four bogeys, but she kept pushing, making five birdies.

   The pandemic kept Heck on the down low as she lost her senior high school season to the outbreak. Heck had a huge couple of years in 2017 and 2018, being named the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) Rolex Player of the Year in 2017 after making the cut and playing four rounds in the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.

   She made another cut in another LPGA major championship when she played the weekend in the 2018 Evian Championship in France. A strong showing this week at Woodmont might move Heck into consideration as a candidate for the United States team for the pandemic-delayed Curtis Cup Match next spring at Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire, Wales.

   Joining Brinker in the trio tied for second place at 2-under 142 were Wake Forest senior Emilia Migliaccio of Cary, N.C. and Michigan State junior Valery Plata of Colombia.

   Migliaccio, No. 4 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), didn’t play in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Amateur at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Miss. She was busy winning a pair of gold medals for the United States in the women’s individual and mixed team competitions in the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru.

   Migliacccio and the Demon Deacons were ranked No. 1 by Golfstat when the pandemic shut down college golf in March and appeared determined to get the national championship that eluded them when they lost in the NCAA Championship’s Final Match to ACC rival Duke at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark. in the spring of 2019.

   Migliaccio and Plata both carded a second consecutive 1-under 71 to land on 2-under 142.

   Defending champion Gabriela Ruffels, a senior at Southern California and No. 16 in the Women’s WAGR, also fired a 1-under 71 to join Virginia junior Riley Smyth and Catherine Park, a teen phenom from Irvine, Calif., in a tie for fifth place at 1-under 143.

   Ruffels, an Aussie who drained a dramatic 10-footer for birdie on the 36^th hole to defeat Pac-12 rival Albane Valenzuela, a Stanford standout who has since turned pro, in last year’s final at Old Waverly, had matched par in Monday’s opening round with a 72.

   Smyth, who, like Migliaccio, hails from Cary, N.C., had shared the lead after the opening round with Migliaccio’s Wake Forest teammate Rachel Kuehn, a sophomore from Asheville, N.C., after firing a 4-under 68. Smyth added a 3-over 75 Wednesday to land at 1-under 143.

   Park matched the splits put up by Ruffels, adding a 1-under 71 to her opening-round 72.

   Kuehn, coming off a victory in last month’s North & South Women’s Amateur Championship at the Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina, added a 76 to her opening-round 68 to head a group of six players tied for eighth place at even-par 144.

   Megha Ganne, the Holmdel, N.J. teen who stormed into the semifinals a year ago at Old Waverly, earned a spot in the match-play bracket as she added a 76 to her solid opening round of 1-under 71 as she finished among the group tied for 26^th place at 3-over 147.

   Walker’s former scholastic rival, Jackie Rogowicz, who starred scholastically at Pennsbury and collegiately at Penn State, finished a shot behind Walker, failing to make the match-play bracket with a 154 total. Rogowicz carded a 4-over 76 Wednesday after opening with a 78.

   Another Jersey girl, Yale junior Ami Gianchandani, a product of The Pingry School, struggled to an 81 Wednesday and also came up short of a spot in match play with a 156 total.

   Meghan Stasi, the South Jersey native who has won four U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur crowns and is an eight-time winner of the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship, added an 80 to her opening-round 81 for a 161 total that left her outside the cutoff for match play.

   Stasi resides these days near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where she helps run her husband Danny’s popular Cajun-style restaurant Shuck n Dive.