Lees, Yao team up to take medalist honors in U.S. Women's Amateur Four-Ball qualifier at Waynesborough

    You couldn’t meet two nicer young kids than Kaitlyn Lees and Samantha Yao when they were high school standouts at Agnes Irwin and Conestoga, respectively.

   I was at every one of the six Inter-Ac League Championships that Lee teed it up in, watching the painfully shy seventh-grader who captured the title in 2013 become the self-assured young lady who won the last of her three crowns as a senior in 2018, getting a little bit better as a player each year.

   I followed Yao for much of the final day of the PIAA Class AAA Championship at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County in both 2016, when she finished as the runnerup to Peters Township’s Mia Kness, who has a pretty nice college career at Seton Hall, and 2017, when Yao placed fourth behind Pine Richland’s Lauren Freyvogel, who is on the Penn State roster these days.

   Both times Yao was in the final group and both times she battled to the finish. She and her pal, Downingtown East’s Liddie McCook, stood arm in arm on the 18^th green at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort as Freyvogel finished off her two-shot victory over McCook, who is playing collegiately at Monmouth. They had given it their best shot.

   It was great to hear that Yao, who won back-to-back District One Class AAA titles in 2016 and 2017, was going to be joining Lees at Dartmouth last fall. Yao had capped her junior career by earning medalist honors in a Golf Association of Philadelphia-administered qualifier for the U.S. Girls’ Junior at the Steel Club. Lees had finished third as a freshman in the Ivy League Championship, leading the Big Green to second place in the team chase, the best finish in the history of the program.

   Then the 2019-2020 season – Lees was a sophomore and Yao was a freshman -- came to a sudden end due to the coronavirus pandemic. Just when things couldn’t get any worse, in July Dartmouth dropped its women’s golf program. I know a lot of colleges reflexively dropped sports programs in reaction to the pandemic, but this decision seemed odd.

   The good news is that Lees and Yao will get to tee it up in a national championship next spring – please, please let the coronavirus be under some modicum of control by then, at least enough to allow the USGA to conduct all of its championships – after claiming medalist honors in a GAP-administered qualifier Tuesday at Waynesborough Country Club for the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship.

   The 20-year-old Lees, who plays out of Merion Golf Club, and the 19-year-old Yao, who plays out of White Manor Country Club, chose the occasion to represent Dartmouth and their teammates one last time. And represent they did.

   The pair fired a sparkling 4-under-par 67 over the 6,069-yard, par-71 Waynesborough layout to finish two shots clear of the field of 13 tandems battling for two berths and two alternate slots for next spring’s U.S. Women’s Four-Ball, scheduled to tee off April 24 at the Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas.

   It was a particularly gratifying day for Lees, a three-time winner of the Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ Championship. She has had some close calls in USGA qualifiers, particularly in 2017 when she was an alternate in qualifiers for both the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship and the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship and never got the call to play in either event.

   “I really didn’t know if this qualifier was even still happening until Sammy told me,” Lees told the GAP website. “Honestly, I feel like I might cry because I’ve come so close to qualifying (for USGA championships) a few times. To come out here today and represent our team, it was a great day for us.”

   The pair started slowly. Yao hit a hybrid into the 383-yard, par-4 fifth hole and it finished 20 feet from the hole. Yao drained the birdie try to get the team to 1-under. And that’s where they stayed as they made the turn to the back nine.

   Lees, a three-time Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ champion, got the duo going on Waynesborough’s incoming nine when she hit a wedge into the 378-yard, par-4 10^th hole to 15 feet and dropped the birdie putt. They were on their way.

   Yao knocked a wedge to 10 feet at the 315-yard, par-4 12^th hole and converted the birdie opportunity. Yao and Lees both hit it within five feet at the 135-yard, par-3 15^th hole and Yao didn’t wait for Lees as Yao drained her birdie putt before Lees even had a chance to putt.

   Yao had one more birdie in her strong back-nine 34 as her approach from 82 yards at Waynesborough’s 468-yard, par-5 closing hole finished 20 feet from the hole and she again knocked the putt in to get her team to 4-under for the round. Yao doesn’t hit it far, but her short game can be magical.

   Yao plans to continue her studies at Dartmouth and give up her college golf career. According to the GAP website, Lees will transfer to Georgetown and resume her college golf career, a very good get for head coach Kate Schaunel and the Hoyas. Georgetown lists Lees on the 2020-’21 roster, so it’s possible she’ll join the Hoyas for the spring semester.

   But you’ll probably be hearing from these two on the amateur golf scene for years to come. They are really nice players, something they’ll get to prove again on a national stage next spring.

   A couple of really nice players from what some consider a golden age of girls golf in District One, two-time District One Class AAA champion Jackie Rogowicz and 2013 PIAA Class AAA champion Isabella DiLisio, just missed earning one of the guaranteed berths to the U.S. Women’s Four-Ball as they were defeated on the second hole of a playoff by Delaware teammates Oihana Etxezarreta and Anna Kittelson after both teams finished two shots behind Lees and Yao with 2-under 69s.

   Rogowicz, who starred scholastically at Pennsbury before a solid four-year career at Penn State, and DiLisio, a Mount St. Joseph standout who had an equally strong four years at Notre Dame, did earn first-alternate status.

   Etxezarreta, a freshman for the Blue Hens from Spain, rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole to punch the ticket for her and Kittelson, a junior from Boise, Idaho, to Maridoe.

   Rogowicz was the Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur champion in 2019 and was unable to defend her title in August because she was awarded a berth in the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md. There were no qualifiers for the U.S. Women’s Amateur due to the pandemic, but Rogowicz was invited to tee it up at Woodmont.

   Undoubtedly shaking off some rust with very few competitive opportunities this summer, Rogowicz failed to make it into the match-play bracket at Woodmont.

   The second alternate is the pair of Rehoboth Beach, Del. phenom Sawyer Brockstedt and Ellison Lundquist of Furlong as they teamed up to post a 1-under 70 and finish in fourth place. Brockstedt shows up in American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) events as a Class of 2025 competitor, which makes her what, an eighth-grader. Lundquist finished 10^th in this summer’s Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ Championship at Lebanon Country Club.

   Overbrook Golf Club’s Alyssa Roland, who qualified for match play in the 2017 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Champions Golf Club’s Cypress Course in Houston, and her partner, Callie Kemmer of Washington, D.C., finished a shot behind Brockstedt and Lundquist in fifth place as they matched par with a 71.

   Samantha Perrotta, the winner of the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Match Play Championship this summer from Bordentown, N.J., and her partner, Angie Whitley Coleman of Wilmington, Del. finished alone in sixth place with a 1-over 72.

   Rolling Green Golf Club’s Sydney Yermish, who claimed the District One Class AAA title as a freshman at Lower Merion a year ago, joined forces with one of her AJGA pals, Tiya Chowdary of Belle Mead, N.J., to finish in a tie for seventh place with a 2-over 73.

   It looks like Yermish, the runnerup in this summer’s Junior Girls’ North & South Championship at the Pinehurst Resort and Country Club in North Carolina, will not get the chance to defend her district title, though, since it appears the Central League was unable to put together a qualifier to send its players to the postseason. The District One Championship tees off Monday.

   Megan Meng of Pennington, N.J., who cruised to the Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ crown at Lebanon, and Angelina Tolentino of Mount Laurel, N.J. were one of the other three teams that finished in a tie for seventh place at 2-over 73. Also in the group at 2-over was the tandem of George School senior Natasha Kiel, a New Hope resident who was the runnerup in the Pennsylvania Junior Girls at Lebanon, and her partner, Alice Knudson of Dallas, Texas.

   Episcopal Academy senior Lauren Jones, who plays out of Merion Golf Club, and Haverford High senior Riley Quartermain, a product of the junior program at Llanerch Country Club, finished in 12^th place with a 4-over 75. Quartermain, like Lower Merion’s Yermish, won’t get a chance to compete in the PIAA postseason this fall. She was a PIAA Class AAA qualifier as a sophomore.

   A couple other talented junior players, Baldwin sophomore Megan Adelman and Kayla Maletto of Sinking Spring finished in 13^th place with a better-ball total of 77.