Brockstedt, Lundquist team up to take medalist honors in U.S. Women's Four-Ball qualifier at Berkshire

    Sawyer Brockstedt has been a rising star on the golf scene ever since she showed up at Augusta National Golf Club the Sunday of Masters week and finished in a tie for fourth place in the Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals in the Girls 10-11 division in 2018.

   Sometimes you forget the Sussex Academy freshman from Rehoboth Beach, Del. is still only 14. Last week Brockstedt and one of her fellow 14-year-olds, Ellison Lundquist of Furlong, put together a better-ball 3-under-par 69 over two days at Reading’s Berkshire Country Club to take medalist honors in a Golf Association of Philadelphia-administered qualifier for next spring’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship.

   Brockstedt was breaking 40 for nine holes in Philadelphia Section PGA Junior Tour events three years ago, so you figured she was going places. She and Lundquist, a ninth-grader at Holicong Middle School, have been pals since competing against each other in U.S. Kids Golf events.

   When the seventh U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship tees off April 20^th at the Grand Reserve Golf Club in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, Brockstedt and Lundquist will be strutting their stuff on a national stage in a United States Golf Association event.

   They finished three shots ahead of a couple of other local phenoms, although Jersey girls Angelina Tolentino of Mount Laurel and Megan Meng of Pennington are comparative veterans at age 15. Tolentino, a sophomore at Lenape High School, and Meng, a sophomore at Hopewell Valley Central High, matched par with a 72 over the 6,079-yard, par-72 Berkshire layout to punch their ticket to Puerto Rico.

   The formidable team of Isabella DiLisio, the 2013 PIAA Class AAA champion as a junior at Mount St. Joseph, and reigning Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship winner Jackie Rogowicz, settled for first-alternate status as they finished in a tie for third place with the North East sister act of Anna Swan and Lydia Swan, each team posting a 1-over 73.

   It's the second year in a row that DiLisio, who starred collegiately at Notre Dame, and Rogowicz, who starred scholastically at Pennsbury and collegiately at Penn State, have come out of the local qualifier as first alternates. Hopefully, they’ll get a shot next spring. I’m thinking they’d be a pretty tough team if they could get into match play.

   Rogowicz earned a spot in the match-play bracket in U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Westchester Country Club in Rye, N.Y. in August before falling in the opening round. It was the first time Rogowicz qualified for match play in her fifth U.S. Women’s Amateur appearance.

   Lydia Swan, the 2019 PIAA Class AA individual champion as a sophomore at North East, and little sister Anna were part of North East’s PIAA Class AA championship team last fall. Lydia Swan is a senior and Anna Swan is a sophomore.

   Lundquist had knocked her pitching wedge to a foot at the 372-yard, par-4 fifth hole and tapped it in for a birdie to get the team back to even-par Sept. 22 when what turned out to be an all-day weather event kicked in with rain, thunder and lightning.

   When Lundquist and Brockstedt returned to Berkshire the following day, they got right back to work.

   Lundquist, who plays out of Jericho National Golf Club, wielded the pitching wedge again on the 120-yard, par-3 ninth hole, hitting it to two feet and making that putt.

   Brockstedt sent her 56-degree wedge into the 324-yard, par-4 14^th hole from 85 yards away and it finished seven feet from the stick. She converted the birdie try. Brockstedt pulled the 56-degree again from 95 yards away at the 360-yard, par-4 17^th and left herself nine feet for birdie and she again got the putt to fall.

   Like Brocksedt, Tolentino, who plays out of Burlington Country Club, was turning heads when she would tee it up with the Philly Junior Tour coed 12-and-under nine-holers. She and Meng knew they were in the hunt for the second and final guaranteed spot in the field in Puerto Rico next spring when they arrived at the tee on the 318-yard, par-4 finishing hole at Berkshire.

   Tolentino’s 8-iron into the green finished 40 feet from the hole and she proceeded to drain the tough right-to-left breaker for a birdie that got the Jersey girls to even par.

   Meng, like Lundquist, plays out of Jericho National. That affiliation enabled her to tee it up in the Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ Championship at Lebanon Country Club in 2020 and she flashed her talent with a three-shot victory.

   This week the guys took their shot at the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship in a GAP-administered qualifier at Radley Run Country Club outside of West Chester earlier this week.

   Ryan Tall, who starred scholastically at Conestoga, joined forces with his Lafayette teammate Kazuki Osawa of Belgium to share medalist honors with a couple of former Towson teammates, Billy Wingerd of Nottingham, Md. and Jeff Castle of Baltimore, each team firing an 8-under 64.

   They earned the two guaranteed spots in the field for the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship, which tees off May 14^th at the Country Club of Birmingham in Birmingham, Ala.

   They had some weather issues Tuesday at Radley Run as well as a brief, but heavy round of storms blew through West Chester late in the morning. Play was ultimately completed, though. Tall and Osawa, both seniors with the Leopards, and Marylanders Wingerd and Castle both played in the afternoon after the morning rains had softened up the 6,799-yard, par-72 Radley Run layout.

   There was a playoff among four teams for the two alternate spots with daylight fading. La Salle teammates Parker Wine, who starred scholastically at Unionville, and Matthew Werner of West Linn, Ore., both seniors with the Explorers, grabbed the first-alternate spot and GAP veterans Joe April and Scott Ehrlich are the second alternates. The four teams in the playoff each signed for a 6-under 66.

   Tall won GAP’s Junior Boys’ Championship at Blue Bell Country Club after making a run to the semifinals of the Whitemarsh Valley Country Club in the summer after he graduated from Conestoga in 2018.

   Tall and Osawa started on the back nine at Radley Run and were 3-under for the round when they reached the first tee. Tall got the team started on Radley Run’s outgoing nine with a birdie at the 326-yard, par-4 third hole. Osawa did the rest.

   Osawa rolled in a 20-footer from the right fringe for a birdie at the par-3 sixth hole, hit a wedge to two feet at seven and made the putt, watched another 20-foot birdie try at the 362-yard, par-4 eighth hole find the bottom of the cup and made it four in a row at the 361-yard, par-4 ninth hole, sending a 56-degree wedge from 140 yards out to 15 feet and dropping yet another birdie putt.

   The 37-year-old Castle and the 38-year-old Wingerd helped Towson reach the NCAA Tournament in 2004 and 2005. They are members at Hillendale Country Club and both are two-time Maryland Mid-Amateur champions.

   Like Tall and Osawa, Castle and Wingerd started on Radley Run’s back nine. Castle got the team going when he reached the 581-yard, par-5 12^th hole in two and two-putted for birdie. Castle then made it three birdies in four holes as he dropped a 10-footer for birdie at the 393-yard, par-4 14^th hole and nearly drove the green at the 357-yard, par-4 15^th and chipped it to a foot for a tap-in.

   Wingerd made it three straight birdies for the team as his approach at the 560-yard, par-5 16^th hole left him six feet for birdie and he drained it.

   Wingerd kept the momentum going on the outgoing nine as he dropped a 12-footer for birdie at the 434-yard, par-4 first hole, hit a 5-iron into the 220-yard, par-3 and watched a 40-foot bomb find the cup and then holed out from a greenside bunker at the 441-yard, par-4 fifth.

   Castle recorded the duo’s eighth birdie of the round when he got it up and down after nearly reaching the 518-yard, par-5 seventh hole in two and chipping up to four feet.