I first became a fan of Global Golf Post, a digital golf publication, when it named Reading’s Chip Lutz the best male amateur golf in the world in 2016 as part of its annual All-Amateur teams presentation.
Lutz, who had saved the best golf of his life for after age 55, had spent the last few years as easily the best senior amateur golfer in the world, a globe-trotting force of nature. He had already won the Royal & Ancient’s Senior Amateur Championship a couple of times and twice won the national senior amateur crown in Canada before he finally nailed down a U.S. Senior Amateur crown in 2015 at Hidden Creek Country Club at the Jersey Shore.
Lutz was certainly worthy of the honor, it was just nice to see that a golf publication had noticed what a tremendous run a guy from Berks County, a 60-something senior golfer, had been on.
For those of us who used to get a magazine – you may have heard of them, they were printed on paper, lots of pretty pictures – every week that wrapped up the previous week in golf, Global Golf Post fills that role in the digital age. Just let them know you’re interested and you’ll get a weekly roundup of golf news from all around the world, pros and amateurs, men and women, you name it, in your e-mail inbox first thing every Monday morning.
Global Golf Post did its 2022 All-Amateur issue a couple of weeks ago and it was, as always, noteworthy on a number of levels.
It seems like it’s been a couple of years since I mentioned the Global Golf Post All-Amateur teams. It might have been too difficult an assignment in 2020 when the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of all of the United States Golf Association’s amateur events with the exception of the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Women’s Amateur. Not to mention the sudden end to the wraparound 2019-2020 college golf season just when it was about to get good.
Last year was a bit of a blur in the world of golf with so many events that had been postponed in 2020 having been rescheduled for 2021, there were very few breaks in the schedule.
The Global Golf Post All-Amateur edition has featured a couple of different formats over the years. This time around, it featured Men’s and Women’s Amateur teams, Men’s and Women’s Mid-Amateur teams and Men’s and Women’s Senior Amateur teams with second-team selections where warranted.
It was an attempt to streamline the teams a little this year, but the overall goal remains as it always has been: To identify and recognize the top amateur players in game.
I might have been a little more interested than in recent years for a couple of reasons. I got a chance to watch half of the Women’s Amateur first-team selections in action in June when the Curtis Cup Match was staged at my favorite golf course, Merion Golf Club’s East Course.
I don’t get out much, so it was a real treat to watch these future stars perform on one of the game’s grandest stages in an event filled with the kind of history and tradition that warms the hearts of old-schoolers like me.
I was pretty interested in the Women’s Mid-Amateur teams, too. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to watch some of them in action in September when the 2023 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship is staged at Stonewall’s North Course, the younger of Tom Doak’s twin gems in the northwest corner of Chester County.
As a Stonewall looper, I’m looking forward to seeing this increasingly competitive age group of women golfers take on the “Udder Course” – if you know anything about Stonewall, you know the partners there are always celebrating the property’s roots as a dairy farm.
As usual, Global Golf Post singled out two of the amateur players as its Male and Female Player of the Year and, much like 2016 when Lutz was the selection as the Male Player of the Year, Global Golf Post again settled on a senior amateur, Rusty Strawn, winner of the 2022 U.S. Senior Amateur at The Kittansett Club along Buzzards Bay in eastern Massachusetts out of McDonough, Ga., as its Male Player of the Year.
The Female Player of the Year went to LSU senior Ingrid Lindblad of Sweden. Kind of tough to deny Rose Zhang, the No. 1 player in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), but if you don’t start an argument or two with your All-Amateur teams, what’s the point of putting them out there?
Strawn is the subject of a nice profile by Sean Fairholm while Steve Eubanks chronicles the accomplishments in 2022 of Lindblad, even while conceding it was a really close call between the LSU star and Zhang.
The 59-year-old Strawn is a guy a lot like Lutz in that he put his family and the family business he runs ahead of competitive golf for decades.
With those priorities in order, Strawn refocused on his golf game and it all came together in 2022. In addition to his victory over fellow Georgian Doug Hanzel of Savannah in the U.S. Senior Amateur at Kittansett, Strawn had wins in the Canadian Senior Amateur, the Trans-Miss Senior Championship, the Florida Azalea Amateur and the Society of Seniors Dale Morey Championship.
I was curious to see if Jeff Frazier, the Mechanicsburg resident who crashed an otherwise all-Georgia party in the U.S. Senior Amateur semifinals at Kittansett, would be included in any of the Senior Amateur selections, but he was not.
Frazier, for whom I’ve looped in several playings of the Fall Scramble at Stonewall, gave Hanzel, a past champion and a legendary senior amateur player, all he wanted before Hanzel pulled out a 1-up victory in the semifinals at Kittansett.
Frazier, recently named the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Senior Player of the Year for 2022, is exempt from qualifying for next year’s U.S. Senior Amateur and hopefully will fit the trip to The Martis Camp Club in Truckee, Calif., into his schedule.
Hanzel and the third member of the group of U.S. Senior Amateur semifinalists from Georgia, Bob Royak of Alpharetta, joined Strawn on the Senior Amateur first team.
A couple of familiar names on the senior amateur circuit, Mike McCoy of West Des Moines, Iowa, and Matthew Sughrue of Arlington, Va., also appear on the Senior Amateur first team. McCoy was a runaway winner of the R&A Senior Amateur Championship at Royal Dornoch and will captain the U.S. Walker Cup team against Great Britain & Ireland in September at the home of golf, the Old Course at St. Andrews.
Two more players in the final eight of the U.S. Senior Amateur at Kittansett, Englishman Stephen Jensen and Miles McConnell of Tampa, Fla. also made the Senior first team. Jensen suffered a hard-fought 1-up loss to Frazier in the quarterfinals while McConnell fell to Strawn, the eventual champion, 5 and 3.
Rounding out the Senior Amateur first team were Robert Funk of Canyon Lakes, Calif., Kevin Vandenberg of Naples, Fla. and Jensen’s fellow Englishman Robert Kellock.
Much of the argument made by Eubanks for naming Lindblad, No. 2 in the Women’s WAGR, the Female Player of the Year is based on her performance in the U.S. Women’s Open at the Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C. There’s something to be said for having your best stuff on the biggest state in women’s golf.
Playing with every Swedish woman’s golf idol, Annika Sorenstam, Lindblad roared out of the gate with a stunning 6-under-par 65 at Pine Needles, a single-round record for an amateur in the U.S. Women’s Open. Lindblad ultimately earned low-amateur honors, finishing in a tie for 11th place with a 1-under 283 total.
Lindblad was also at her best in sharing second place on one of the cathedrals of the game in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship. She led the Bayou Tigers to the title in the Southeastern Conference Championship, the first in program history.
Lindblad finished in a tie for third place, five shots behind individual champion Zhang in the NCAA Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.
A lot of people seemed to expect Lindblad to turn pro at some point in 2022, but she’s made it clear she’s going to play out here senior year at LSU.
When Zhang of Irvine, Calif. showed up at Merion for the Curtis Cup, she had already won the NCAA individual crown and led Stanford the team title to cap her freshman season. She, too, made the cut at Pine Needles, finishing in a tie for 40th place.
Zhang was joined on the Global Golf Post Women’s Amateur first team by her Stanford teammate, Rachel Heck of Memphis, Tenn. and winner of the NCAA individual crown in Grayhawk as a freshman in 2021. Heck is No. 4 in the Women’s WAGR.
Got a chance to watch Zhang and Heck take control of an alternate-shot foursome match at Merion. Really good players don’t always click in alternate shot, but those two were like a well-oiled machine. You get this feeling that the reason they’re so good at golf is because they’re good at so many other things, not the least of which is the demanding academics at Stanford.
Two other members of the winning U.S. Curtis Cup team, Southern California sophomore Amari Avery of Riverside, Calif. and No. 7 in the Women’s WAGR, and Wake Forest senior Rachel Kuehn of Asheville, N.C. and No. 8 in the Women’s WAGR, also made Women’s Amateur first team.
After only half a season of college golf, Avery was one of the stars of captain Sarah Ingraham’s winning U.S. side. Like Zhang and Heck, Kuehn was part of a second winning U.S. Curtis Cup team in a ninth-month span and her appearance at Merion came after she had led the Demon Deacons to the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship.
A fifth player on the Women’s Amateur first team I got a chance to watch play at Merion was a member of the Great Britain & Ireland team, South Carolina junior Hannah Darling, the Scotswoman who is No. 6 in the Women’s WAGR.
A couple of junior players were deserving of spots on the Women’s Amateur first team, Anna Davis, the left-hander from Spring Valley, Calif. who was the stunning winner of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship, Bailey Shoemaker of Dade City, Fla.
Davis, No. 9 in the Women’s WAGR, announced at last month’s Rolex Tournament of Champions, the marquee event on the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) circuit, that she will join the program at Auburn in the summer of 2024, but with five made cuts in seven LPGA appearances in the wake of her spectacular performance at Augusta, Davis may still opt to skip college golf and turn pro.
All Shoemaker, No. 58 in the Women’s WAGR, did in 2022 was make the cut in the U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles and make a run to the semifinals of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash. She will join the program at Alabama next summer.
Japanese teen Saki Baba, No. 3 in the Women’s WAGR, was a dominating 11 and 9 winner over Monet Chun, a Michigan Wolverine from Canada, in the final at Chambers Bay after handing Shoemaker a 7 and 6 setback in the semifinals. Like Shoemaker, Baba played the weekend in the U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles.
Rounding out the Women’s Amateur first team was Emma Spitz, the native of Austria who helped lead UCLA into match play in last spring’s NCAA Championship at Grayhawk. Spitz has since turned pro, but, as Global Golf Post pointed out, she always seemed be in the mix in the biggest amateur events the last couple of years.
The two finalists from last summer’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship at Fiddlesticks Country Club’s Long Mean Course in Fort Myers, Fla., champion Krissy Carman, mother of a bouncing 2-year-old boy from Eugene, Ore., and Aliea Clark, a former UCLA standout who is pursuing advanced degrees in film and business in New York City, head Global Golf Post’s list of Women’s Mid-Amateur first-team All-Amateur selections.
Here's hoping both will be back when the U.S. Mid-Am is contested at Stonewall’s North Course next summer.
It was the second straight year Clark battled her way to the final only to be denied the title as she fell to Blakesly Brock of Chattanooga, Tenn. in the title match in 2021 at the Berkeley Hall Club’s North Course in Bluffton, S.C.
It wouldn’t be a Women’s Mid-Amateur first team without the presence of Meghan Stasi, the South Jersey native who resides in Oakland Park, Fla. It’s been a while since Stasi won the last of her four U.S. Mid-Am crowns, but she remains a tough out in the championship she once owned, reaching the quarterfinals at Fiddlesticks.
She was known as Meghan Bolger when she won the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Match Play Championship seven straight times from 1998 to 2005. The WGAP lured Stasi for a trip home when it staged its Match Play Championship at Tavistock Country Club, her home course as a kid, last summer and didn’t Stasi win the thing.
Stasi openly roots for the next generation of mid-am ladies, those recent college stars and reinstated amateurs who have moved on to jobs and motherhood, to come out and compete for national mid-am honors.
A couple of the Philadelphia area’s rising mid-am standouts, Isabella DiLisio and Jackie Rogowicz, both playing out of Philadelphia Cricket Club, made deep runs at Fiddlesticks, DiLisio taking Clark to the 18th hole before falling, 1-up, in a tight semifinal battle.
A couple more strong showings next summer at Stonewall’s North Course might land DiLisio and Rogowicz, the reigning Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur champion, on the Global Golf Post Women’s Mid-Amateur first team a year from now.
Another Oregonian, Gretchen Johnson of Portland, a perennial contender in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am, reached the round of 16 at Fiddlesticks and earned a spot on the Women’s Mid-Amateur first team.
The only other Americans on the Women’s Mid-Amateur first team were a third Oregonian, Amanda Jacobs of Portland, who, like Johnson, reached the round of 16 at Fiddlesticks, and Allison Gonring of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Rounding out the Women’s Mid-Amateur first team was an array of talented foreigners, including Ane Urchegui Garcia of Spain, Stephanie Gelleni, a Venezuelan who played college golf at Pepperdine, Helene Malvy of France and Celine Manche of Belgium.
At head of the Men’s Mid-Amateur first team was Stewart Hagestad of Newport Beach, Calif., who has been the face of mid-am golf since winning the first of his two U.S. Mid-Amateur crowns at Stonewall in 2016.
At No. 9 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), Hagestad reached the round of 16 in defense of the second U.S. Mid-Am title he won in 2021 at Sankaty Head Golf Club on Nantucket Island in last summer’s staging of the U.S. Mid-Am at Erin Hills.
Hagestad has been invited to a practice session for the 2023 Walker Cup Match, which will be held at the Old Course at St. Andrews, this month in Jupiter, Fla. He has been a member of three straight winning U.S. sides at Los Angeles Country Club, his home course growing up, in 2017, at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England in 2019 and at the iconic Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Fla. in the spring of 2021.
Another Men’s Mid-Amateur first-team selection, Evan Beck of Virginia Beach, Va. and No. 64, will join Hagestad in the Walker Cup practice session this month in Jupiter. Beck was a repeat winner of the Eastern Amateur last summer.
Jersey guy Mark Costanza of Morristown also made the Men’s Mid-Am first team. The runnerup to Hagestad in the U.S. Mid-Amateur at Sankaty Head, Costanza reached the round of 16 last summer at Erin Hills.
The two Irish pals who traveled to Erin Hills together and then ended up meeting for the championship, Matthew McClean, the champion with a 3 and 1 victory in the final, and Hugh Foley, were obvious choices to make Global Golf Post’s Men’s Mid-Amateur first team.
Other Americans on the Men’s Mid-Am first team were Bradford Tilley of Easton, Conn., winner of the Met Amateur last summer, and Joe Deraney of Beldon, Miss.
Rounding out the foreign contingent on the Men’s Mid-Am first team were Henry Bolton of Australia, Sam Jones of New Zealand and James Leow of Singapore.
Scott Harvey of Kernersville, N.C., the runnerup to Hagestad at Stonewall and the 2014 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion at Saucon Valley Country Club, headed the Men’s Mid-Am second-team selections. Harvey defeated Costanza in the round of 16 to reach the quarterfinals of last summer’s U.S. Mid-Am Championship at Erin Hills.
The Global Golf Post Men’s Amateur first team features three players who will be joining Hagestad and Beck in auditioning for U.S. Walker Cup captain McCoy this month in Jupiter, including reigning NCAA individual champion Gordon Sargent, a sophomore at Vanderbilt from Birmingham, Ala. and No. 3 in the WAGR, Stanford’s Michael Thorbjornsen, a junior from Wellesley, Mass. and No. 4 in the WAGR and North Carolina graduate student Dylan Menante of Carlsbad, Calif. and No. 6 in the WAGR.
Pretty sure accepting the invitation to Jupiter requires a bit of a commitment to remain an amateur through the summer.
It was Menante who ended the Cinderella run of Downingtown West junior Nick Gross in the quarterfinals of last summer’s U.S. Amateur Championship at The Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J.
Menante, who was in the starting lineup for Pepperdine in its run to the national championship in 2021 at Grayhawk and again when the Waves reached the semifinals last spring in defense of their title before transferring to North Carolina, lost to fellow Men’s Amateur first-teamer Sam Bennett, 1-up, in a hard-fought semifinal at Ridgewood.
Bennett, a fifth-year player at Texas A&M from Madisonville, Texas and No. 2 in the WAGR, claimed a 1-up victory over Ben Carr to put his name on the Havemeyer Trophy at Ridgewood.
Menante’s new North Carolina teammate, Austin Greaser, a senior from Vandalia, Ohio and No. 5 in the WAGR, also made the elite Men’s Amateur first team. Greaser, the beaten finalist in the 2021 U.S. Amateur at iconic Oakmont Country Club, and Bennett both made the cut and played weekend in last summer’s U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass.
Greaser also won the tough test that is the Western Amateur at North Shore Country Club in Glenview, Ill.
Of course, the No. 1 player in the WAGR, Texas Tech senior Ludvig Aberg of Sweden, made the Men’s Amateur first team. The Big 12 Conference individual champion, Aberg helped the Red Raiders reach the match-play bracket in the NCAA Championship at Grayhawk.
Looks like Men’s Amateur first-team selection Eugenio Chacarra, a standout at Oklahoma State from Spain, has turned pro as has Italy’s Filipro Celli, the low amateur in The Open Championship last summer at St. Andrews.
Rounding out the Men’s Amateur first-team selections was Taiga Semikawa, who turned pro after becoming the first amateur to win the Japan Open in nearly a century in October.
The U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur became the first USGA championship conducted in Alaska, so perhaps it was appropriate that Shelly Stouffer became the fourth Canadian to capture the title at Anchorage Golf Course in Anchorage, Alaska in the biggest event in the world for the senior set.
Global Golf Post’s Women’s Senior Amateur first team was headed by Stouffer, who added a victory iin the Canadian Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship and made the cut and played the weekend in the U.S. Women’s Open at NCR Country Club’s South Course in Kettering, Ohio.
It was a pretty good year to be Canadian and a senior in 2022 as Stouffer was joined on the Women’s Senior Amateur first team by countrywomen Judith Kyrnis, the 2017 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur champion who also made the cut in the U.S. Senior Women’s Open at NCR, and Terrill Samuel, winner of the R&A’s Senior Women’s Amateur Championship at Royal Dornoch.
Lara Tennant of Portland, Ore. finally saw her run of three straight U.S. Women’s Senior Amateur crowns halted in the round of 16 at Anchorage, but was still an easy choice to make the Women’s Senior Amateur first team.
The ageless Ellen Port of St. Louis, owner of four U.S. Women’s Mid-Am and three U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur crowns, also appeared on the Women’s Senior Amateur first team. Port and Tennant both finished among the top 30 in the U.S. Senior Women’s Open at NCR.
Kathy Hartwiger made the Senior Women’s Amateur first team on the strength of a run to the semifinals of the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur at Anchorage and a victory in the North and South Senior Women’s Amateur Championship only a couple of months after relocating to the Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina from Alabama.
For the third time in the last five years, Australia’s Sue Wooster settled for runnerup honors in the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship after falling to Stouffer in the final at Anchorage. Still, Wooster, who lost twice in the final to Tennant, proved she belonged on the Senior Women’s Amateur first team.
A trio of foreign players, Macarena Campomanes of Spain, Laura Webb of Ireland and Sylvie Van Molle of Belgium, rounded out the Senior Women’s Amateur first team.
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