As I hunted around among the various college websites trying to figure out when teams were going to finally get back on the golf course for the spring portion of the wraparound 2020-2021 season, I noticed that Brynn Walker, who was a two-time PIAA Class AAA champion at Radnor, did not appear on the North Carolina roster.
Last spring should have been the end of Walker’s college career, but you know how that turned out. College golf was shut down when the coronavirus pandemic really hit home in mid-March.
The NCAA offered an extra year of eligibility to the players who had the final weeks of their senior season stolen by the pandemic and after considerable consideration, Walker decided she would head back to Chapel Hill for a fifth year, maybe start doing some work on an advanced degree.
Walker had earned some Symetra Tour status in Stage 2 of LPGA Qualifying School in the summer of 2019, but there would be no chance to improve that status as the LPGA cancelled its Qualifying School process. Then the United States Golf Association offered Walker a spot in the 2020 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md. since she had reached the second round of match play in the U.S. Women’s Am a year earlier at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Miss.
All of which played a role in Walker’s decision to remain an amateur.
College golf, however, did not really return last fall, at least not everywhere. The Atlantic Coast Conference shut down golf, so there was no competition for Walker and the Tar Heels. A couple of days after Christmas, Walker decided it was time to get on with her professional career.
Walker has a blog chronicling her golf journey – you can find it on brynncwalker.com – and her post on turning pro is worth a look. In these pandemic years, the decisions are never easy. It was probably time, though. Not sure how many opportunities she’ll get on the Symetra Tour, but she’ll find some places to play while gearing up for LPGA Qualifying School and hopefully a shot at the LPGA Q-Series, the 144-hole marathon at the Pinehurst Resort’s No. 7 Course that is the culmination of Q-School.
With Walker heading for the pro ranks, it got me to thinking back to the golden age of District One girls golf, which I got to chronicle in my final years in the newspaper business at the Delaware County Daily Times.
Beginning in 2008 when Kennett’s Christine Shimel outdueled Chichester sophomore Aurora Kan – the talented kid I was at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County to cover for the Daily Times – to capture the PIAA crown, a girl from District One would win eight straight big-school state titles at Heritage Hills.
When the PIAA added a second classification in 2012, a District One girl, Villa Maria Academy sophomore Cara Basso, won that, too. District One’s domination of the big-school classification continued right through the fall of 2015 when Walker completed her high school career in emphatic fashion by winning her second straight PIAA Class AAA individual title.
Oh yeah, Walker was also a major factor in Radnor’s victory the next day in the PIAA Class AAA boys team competition. I didn’t know it at the time, but a few weeks later, I received the dreaded pink slip at the Daily Times. After the first week of 2016, my time in the newspaper business was up after 38 years, but at least I had those last eight falls when I had a front-row seat to an era of girls golf in District One golf that may never be matched.
I knew Kan was going to be a force to be reckoned with on the high school golf scene. She had been a phenom at the junior level, twice earning a trip to the defunct U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship, earning a spot in the match-play bracket at the Kearney Hills Golf Links in Lexington, Ky. the summer before her freshman season in 2007. She was still only 13.
Kan won the first of three straight District One championships as a freshman and went on to finish fifth in her debut in the PIAA Championship at Heritage Hills. The winner was Waynesburg junior Rachel Rohanna, who would go on to star at Ohio State and bounces between the LPGA Tour and the Symetra Tour these days.
The next year, Shimel, who had finished in a tie for second behind Rohanna a year earlier, got off to a great start with a 3-under 69 in the opening round and Kan couldn’t quite catch her, settling for a runnerup finish.
A year later, Radnor senior Jackie Calamaro – she, too, was a Delco girl, so I was covering her for the Daily Times, in addition to Kan -- got the jump on Kan with a 2-over 74 in the opening round and Kan was a frustrated runnerup again.
In 2010, Kan was denied a fourth straight District One title by Council Rock North’s talented freshman, Erica Herr. But Kan would finally get that state crown she had pursued so doggedly, edging another District One rival, West Chester East senior Gabriella DiMarco, and Nazareth senior Stani Schiavone, in a playoff.
Erica Herr took the baton from Kan and continued District One’s dominant run at the top of the heap in Pennsylvania high school golf as she captured the next two state titles, 2011 being the last year of one classification and again in 2012 when she captured the new Class AAA crown while Basso was claiming the Class AA title.
In 2011, a couple of District One freshmen, Pennsbury’s Jackie Rogowicz and Mount St. Joseph’s Isabella DiLisio, went 2-3, respectively behind Erica Herr. In 2012, Rogowicz was the runnerup to Erica Herr again with DiLisio finishing fourth.
The big story for me at Heritage Hills in 2012 was the Radnor girls team. It had been Calamaro, the 2009 state champion, who had been the impetus in forming a girls team at Radnor in the first place. By 2011, behind captain Caitlin Sullivan, Radnor finally wrested the District One team title away from perennial power Mount St. Joe’s and went to earn a runnerup finish in the PIAA team chase.
The Radnor girls knew Walker was coming in 2012 and her addition would make them stronger. Walker would finish in a tie for seventh place in her debut in the team competition that year and then would help the Radnor girls win the state team crown in the first year of the Class AAA classification.
It was a true team behind co-captains Jamie Susanin and Allie Ziegler – they were real senior leaders -- Julia Curley, Julieanne Horgan and Walker. The team picture on the ninth green at Heritage Hills – head coach Andy Achenbach and Steve Burns are in it, too – exists from the early days of this blog, right there in October of 2012.
Somehow, 2013 has always been one of the highlights of my memories of this era, even though I wasn’t really covering the major players in the drama at the 18th hole at Heritage Hills that day.
But I had grown to appreciate the talent of Erica Herr and Rogowicz and DiLisio. I always remember the opening round of the 2012 District One Championship at Gilbertsville Golf Club when Rogowicz and DiLisio, both sophomores, each fired a 5-under 66 in a field that included the defending state champion in Erica Herr. OK, I remember thinking, the bar has officially been raised in District One.
DiLisio went on to win the district crown with Rogowicz earning runnerup honors, although Erica Herr would come back a couple of weeks later to repeat as the state champion.
A year later, Erica Herr, bidding to finish her scholastic career with a third straight PIAA crown, took a one-shot lead over DiLisio to the tee at the 18th hole at Heritage Hills, a long par-4 for the guys and a reachable par-5 for the gals. DiLisio reached the green in two and promptly rolled in a 25-footer for eagle.
Erica Herr, who had a decent look at birdie after reaching the green in three, was so shaken she four-putted and fell back to a tie for third place. Rogowicz, also playing in the final group, was the runnerup for the second straight year.
The next day, DiLisio led the way as the Mount romped to the PIAA Class AAA team crown.
It was Walker, much like Erica Herr had earlier in the decade, who carried the District One banner the next two years. Walker had been improving all along and, in the summer before her junior season, she had qualified for both the U.S. Junior Girls’ Championship and the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship.
Walker would then cap that 2014 scholastic season by capturing the PIAA Class AAA Championship, beating Canon-McMillan’s Lauren Waller in a playoff. The PIAA being the PIAA, it took an hour to get the playoff started and Walker just crushed a drive to within 30 yards of the par-4 ninth hole, chipped it close and made the birdie putt. Waller had shared third place with Erica Herr in 2013.
In the midst of that 2014 postseason run, Walker teamed with Madelein Herr, Erica’s younger sister, to qualify for the following spring’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship at the spectacular Bandon Dunes Resort in a hard-to-reach corner of coastal Oregon. The U.S. Women’s Four-Ball was the replacement for the abandoned U.S. Women’s Public Links Championship on the USGA schedule.
As it turned out, it was District One gone national as the two high school juniors finished third in qualifying for match play and made a run to the semifinals before falling. You can’t imagine the kick I got out of watching Walker and Madelein Herr during Fox’s coverage of the U.S. Women’s Four-Ball while standing in the newsroom at the Daily Times.
It seemed pretty much inevitable that Walker would close out her scholastic career with another state title in the fall of 2015 and she did, giving District One its eighth straight big-school state champion at Heritage Hills. The best player in the history of Owen J. Roberts, Maddie Sager, was the runnerup, three shots behind Walker.
Madelein Herr had won the district title that year – somehow Walker never won an individual district title during her scholastic career – and finished in a tie for fourth place. Madelein Herr, like her big sister, was a state qualifier in all four of her years at Council Rock North.
Walker and Madelein Herr returned to the U.S. Women’s Four-Ball in the spring of their senior years and made another pretty nice run to the quarterfinals.
By then, I had moved on from the newspaper business, but I had a thought that maybe I’d like to keep it going with this blog, originally formulated as a place to supplement my golf coverage in the Daily Times.
I had kept up with Kan’s college career at Purdue and with Calamaro at Illinois in the blog as much as I could while I was still at the Daily Times, so I thought why not follow the progress of all these great girls I had seen in the last few years, Erica Herr was at Wake Forest, DiLisio was at Notre Dame, Walker was headed for North Carolina, Madelein Herr was about to join Rogowicz, Villa Maria’s Basso and Canon-McMillan’s Waller with Denise St. Pierre’s Penn State program.
In doing so, I became fascinated with the whole college golf scene and tried my best to keep up with it, both locally and nationally, always with an eye toward players from the Philly area. I let the blog take me where it wants me to go.
Western Pennsylvania flexed its muscles a little in the next three years after Walker’s 2015 victory. The next three PIAA Class AAA champions, Peters Township’s Mia Kness, Pine Richland’s Lauren Freyvogel and North Allegheny’s Caroline Wrigley, were all in the top 12 in 2015 behind Walker at Heritage Hills.
I’ve continued to go back to Heritage Hills each year because, obviously, I’ve seen a ton of great golf there from youngsters just finding their stride and, besides, it’s great blog material.
District One was back in 2019 with a three-way playoff among eventual winner Elizabeth Beek, a freshman at Wissahickon, Victoria Kim, a sophomore at West Chester East, and Sydney Yermish, another freshman at Lower Merion who had won the District One crown a couple of weeks earlier.
Kim won again last fall, edging Emmaus’ Michelle Cox in a playoff, although Beek has moved on to the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. and the pandemic prevented Yermish from competing in the postseason. That’s two straight big-school state titles for District One, perhaps the start of another run for the district.
By the way, Sager, the runnerup to Walker in 2015, accepted the NCAA’s offer of an extra year of eligibility and will play this spring at Seton Hall, so not everybody from that golden age of District One golf is finished with college golf just yet.
The Pirates were supposed to tee it up in last week’s Paradise Invitational in Boca Raton, Fla., but didn’t make the trip. Wouldn’t be surprised if there were some coronavirus travel concerns involved. Hopefully, they’ll be able to get back on the course at some point this spring.
No comments:
Post a Comment