Stasi comes home to Tavistock to win WGAP Match Play Championship crown for a ninth time

    She was Meghan Bolger when, playing out of Tavistock Country Club, she won the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Match Play Championship seven straight times from 1999 to 2005.

   She is Meghan Stasi now and the game of golf has taken her many places, to Tulane to play college golf, to Mississippi where she became the youngest head coach in college golf at 23, to victories in four U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championships, to an appearance with the United States in the 2008 Curtis Cup Match at the home of golf, St. Andrews, where her future husband, Danny Stasi, head chef and proprieter at Shuck n Dive, a Cajun-style restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., proposed to her on the Swilcan Bridge.

   Last week it took her home again, back to where it all began again at Tavistock. And didn’t Meghan Stasi, who mastered the skill of succeeding in match-play golf by beating the best women players in the Philadelphia area year after year, go out and win WGAP’s Match Play Championship for a ninth time, defeating Ava O’Sulllivan, who capped an outstanding scholastic career at Downingtown East last fall by leading the Cougars to the PIAA Class AAA team crown, 3 and 2, in the scheduled 36-hole final.

   Stasi won the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur back-to-back in 2006 and 2007 and again in 2010 and one last time in 2012. At 40-something, Stasi finds it tough to keep up with the 20-something mid-am “rookies” these days, but she remains a formidable match-play competitor.

   Stasi earned a spot in the match-play bracket in last year’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at Berkeley Hall Golf Club’s North Course in Bluffton, S.C. before falling in the opening round. As recently as 2019, Stasi made a run to the semifinals in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at Forest Highlands Golf Club in Flagstaff, Ariz.

   Hopefully, Stasi will be in the field when the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am comes to Stonewall’s North Course in the northwestern corner of Chester County in September of 2023.

   Stasi jumped on O’Sullivan, who captured the District One Class AAA title at Turtle Creek Golf Course in 2020 as a junior, in the morning round of Thursday’s scheduled 36-hole final with wins at the first, second, eighth, ninth and 11^th holes giving Stasi a commanding 5-up lead.

   But O’Sullivan, who will play collegiately at Converse University in South Carolina, never really went away.

   O’Sullivan, playing out of Whitford Country Club, won the 18^th hole of the morning round to cut her deficit to 3-down heading into the lunch break.

   Stasi started the afternoon 18 strong, rattling off wins at the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st holes to again take control of the match with a 6-up lead.

   But O’Sullivan again battled back taking three straight wins at the 23^rd, 24^th and 25^th holes. Stasi won the 27^th hole to restore a 4-up advantage, but wins at the 28^th and 32^nd holes enabled O’Sullivan to creep within 2-down with four holes to play.

   The match-play maestro, though, closed out O’Sullivan with wins at the 33^rd and 34^th holes to capture her first WGAP Match Play Championship since she came home to put her name on the Glenna Collett Vare Trophy for the eighth time in 2014 at Wilmington Country Club’s South Course.

   It was a long day with real-feel temperatures hovering around 100 degrees, but Stasi, playing in front of her people, was more than good enough.

   It wasn’t an easy road to the final for Stasi. She rattled off wins on the 10^th, 11^th and 12^th holes to pull away from Penn State sophomore Michelle Cox, the former Emmaus standout who capped her junior career by capturing the Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ crown at Lebanon Country Club last summer, for a 3 and 2 victory in Wednesday afternoon’s semifinals.

   Earlier Wednesday, Tavistock’s Olivia Strigh, a Williams College sophomore who was a fixture on Philadelphia Section PGA Junior Tour leaderboards during her junior career, took Stasi to the 18^th hole before Stasi pulled off a 1-up victory in a quarterfinal match.

   Another Tavistock veteran, Mary McGuiness, also battled Stasi to the 18^th hole before Stasi advanced to the quarterfinals with a 1-up victory in Tuesday’s opening round of match play.

   O’Sullivan reached the final with a hard-fought 3 and 2 victory over recent Strath Haven graduate Grace Smith, who was playing out of The Springhaven Club, in the other semifinal. Smith had won the 13^th hole to get within 1-down before O’Sullivan closed her out with wins at 15 and 16.

   Earlier Wednesday, O’Sullivan had ousted the defending champion, Jackie Rogowicz, who starred scholastically at Pennsbury and collegiately at Penn State, with a 1-up victory. Rogowicz had captured the title a year ago at Saucon Valley Country Club’s Grace Course.

   It was a pretty nice run at Tavistock for Smith, who will join the program at Stetson next month. In the opening round, Smith knocked off Karen Siegel, the assistant coach of Penn’s women’s golf team who plays out of Commonwealth National Golf Club, 3 and 2.

   Siegel, who played in the 2019 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship at Cedar Rapids Country Club in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, finished in a tie for second place in last Monday’s stroke-play qualifying with a solid 3-over 75. Cox was the qualifying medalist with a 1-over 73.

   Smith then edged Merion Golf Club’s Lauren Jones, the former Episcopal Academy standout who was coming off a solid freshman season at Richmond, 1-up in the quarterfinals.

   Cox had to go 19 holes to get past Llanerch Country Club’s Riley Quartermain, the former Haverford High standout who is a sophomore at North Carolina, in the quarterfinals. Spotted Quartermain hanging out at the Curtis Cup Match, supporting the U.S. team, at Merion in June.

   Lauren Jones’ mother, Loraine Jones, captured the title in the inaugural playing of the WGAP’s Senior Match Play Championship with a 2 and 1 victory over Suzi Spotleson of the RiverCrest Golf Club & Preserve.

   Jones and Spotleson, winner of the WGAP Match Play Championship in 2015, both teed it up in last year’s U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship at The Lakewood Club in Point Clear, Ala. Jones earned a spot in the match-play bracket as a 50-year-old “rookie” before falling in the opening round while Spotleson lost in a playoff for the final berths in match play.

   Spotleson won the 12^th hole to draw even with Jones in the Senior final at Tavistock, but Jones pulled away by taking back-to-back wins at 14 and 15.

   Jones had defeated Ruth Averbeck of Old York Road Country Club, 2-up, in the semifinals while Spotleson earned a 4 and 3 decision over Susie Kirk, another Tavistock representative, in the other semifinal.

   Kirk had claimed medalist honors in qualifying with a 4-over 76 on her home course with Jones finishing in second place, a shot behind Kirk with a 77.

   Spotleson had survived an opening-round test with Riverton Country Club's Ann Laughlin, earning a 1-up victory. The legendary Laughlin's 11 WGAP Match Play Championship victories is one shy of the record of 12 won by the late, great Helen Sigel Wilson.

   In the Senior first-flight final, Megan Grosky McGowan of Blue Bell Country Club earned a 3 and  victory over Huntingdon Valley Country Club’s Maureen Koerwer.