Rogowicz comes up just short of U.S. Women's Mid-Am final with loss to Chugg at Stonewall North

 

   WARWICK TOWNSHIP – When Jackie Rogowicz was at Penn State, it’s pretty likely recently retired head coach Denise St. Pierre never had to think twice about penciling Rogowicz’s name into her starting lineup.

   Rogowicz has always been a consistent sort. She didn’t always go low, but she hardly ever let a round slip away from her to the point that it wouldn’t count for the Nittany Lions.

   That kind of consistency was on display in the 36^th U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship at Stonewall’s North Course, the younger of Tom Doak’s twin gems in the northwest corner of Chester County.

   Rogowicz came up one step short of earning a spot in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am final Wednesday, falling in the semifinals, 1-up, to Kelsey Chugg of Salt Lake City, Utah, the 2017 winner at Champions Golf Club’s Cypress Creek Course in Houston and a beaten finalist a year later at Norwood Hills Country Club in St. Louis, in a riveting match that went right to the final putt.

   Earlier in the day Wednesday, the 26-year-old Rogowicz, a scholastic standout at Pennsbury, spotted 2015 U.S. Women’s Mid-Am champion Lauren Greenlief of Ashburn, Va. the first two holes and lost only one hole the rest of the way in an impressive 3 and 2 victory in the quarterfinals.

   “I made the round of 16 last year and lost in the semifinals this year, so I improved,” Rogowicz said after the tough loss to Chugg. “I beat Lauren this morning and I thought I had a really good chance against Kelsey, but things didn’t go my way.

   “Makes me think I can win a USGA event, it really does.”

   If you watched Rogowicz this week, you’d have to agree. She was just that solid. I was on the bag for Rogowicz’s first-round opponent, Tara Joy-Connelly of Middleborough, Mass., and Rogowicz was really tough in a 5 and 4 victory.

   And that was after Rogowicz got a share of medalist honors in qualifying with a 3-under 139 total over the 5,920-yard, par-71 North Course layout and its confounding green complexes.

   Were it not for some short-game wizardry from the 32-year-old Chugg, it might easily have been Rogowicz advancing to Thursday’s final.

   “It was pretty impressive,” Rogowicz said of Chugg’s short-game clinic. “She was short on 11 and got it up and down. Got it up and down out of the bunker at 12, that shot at 15, up and down at 16, she was putting at 17, but ran it eight feet by and made the putt coming back and then up and down here at 18.”

   It was similar to the 1-up loss suffered by Rogowicz’s scholastic rival at Mount St. Joseph and U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball partner Isabella DiLisio a day earlier in the round of 16 to 59-year-old Canadian Judith Kyrinis.

   The only thing that separates Rogowicz and DiLisio from the veterans is experience and both added a couple more layers of match-play scar tissue this week.

   “That shot” at 15 came after Chugg got all ball out of a fairway bunker and sent it into the stand of pine trees over the green. Chugg hit a brilliant chip to six feet, but missed the putt for bogey. Still, it turned Rogowicz’s attempt to two-putt from 30 feet into a nervy adventure.

   With the door open just a crack, Rogowicz got her par and cut Chugg’s 2-up lead in half with three holes to play.

   Chugg tugged her approach off the green to the left at the par-4 16^th hole. Facing a tough downhill chip, Chugg banged it off the pin, the ball stopping two feet away. Rogowicz had a good look at birdie from 25 feet away, but couldn’t quite get the ball to the hole.

   After they halved the 17^th hole, Chugg took her 1-up advantage to the risk-reward par-5 finishing hole.

   Rogowicz’s drive just drifted into the left rough. After consulting with her caddy, Terry Sawyer, who has been a good player forever in Bucks County and often officiates in Golf Association of Philadelphia major championships, the decision was made to lay up short of the second creek.

   It was the first time Rogowicz had seen the 18^th hole since the stroke-play qualifying rounds Saturday and Sunday.

   “It was unreachable on the weekend, to the point I sort of forgot it even was reachable,” Rogowicz said. “I asked Terry if he thought I could have made it if I was in the fairway and he said yes.”

   After laying up to 92 yards away, Rogowicz spun it back to 15 feet above the hole with her 54-degree wedge. Chugg again tugged her approach to the rough just off the left side of the green.

   Chugg had one last little bit of short-game magic left, lofting the delicate chip onto the green and watching it roll out just two feet from the hole.

   Rogowicz knew she had to make birdie to extend the match, but her putt lost speed and fell off to the right.

   “I thought the greens really slowed down in the afternoon,” Rogowicz said.

   Chugg was 1-down after Rogowicz canned a six-foot birdie putt at the fifth hole.

   But Chugg took control of the match, building a 2-up lead over the next four holes. Chugg stuck her approach at the short, par-3 sixth hole to three feet and made the putt.

   Rogowicz saw her drive on the par-5 seventh hole plug in the face of a bunker on the right side, but she recovered to reach the green in regulation. But she left her first putt from 25 feet short, which led to a three-putt bogey and enabled Chugg to take a 1-up lead.

   Chugg then closed out the front nine by hitting it to six feet at the ninth hole and rolling in her birdie try to take a 2-up lead.

   Chugg began the day Wednesday by edging 37-year-old Taryn Walker of Prospect, Ky., 1-up, in the quarterfinals.

   Chugg’s opponent in Thursday morning’s final will be Kimberly Dinh, a 31-year-old from Midland, Mich. who cruised to a 4 and 3 victory over Gretchen Johnson, a 37-year-old from Portland, Ore., in Wednesday’s other semifinal.

   Dinh, who played college golf at Wisconsin, was a quarterfinalist a year ago in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at Fiddlestick County Club’s Long Mean Course in Fort Myers, Fla.

   Johnson won the fifth hole with a birdie, but after that, it was all Dinh. She won the sixth hole with a birdie to get even, took eight with a par, 10 with a birdie, 11 with a par and 14 with a birdie to take a commanding 4-up lead with four holes to play.

   When they halved the 15^th hole with pars, it was over.

   Rogowicz fell behind Greenlief, 2-down, in their quarterfinal match when Greenlief, a threat to win this championship every time she tees it up, won the first two holes with pars. But Rogowicz answered by winning the third hole with a par, the fifth with a birdie and the sixth with a par to take a 1-up lead.

   Greenlief evened the match with a birdie at the par-5 seventh hole, but she would never win another hole.

   In the meantime, Rogowicz piled up wins at the eighth and 12^th holes with birdies and at 15 with a par to take a 3-up lead with three holes to play. When they halved the par-4 16^th with pars, it was over.

   Johnson earned her spot in the semifinals with a 4 and 2 victory over Kyrinis, the conqueror of DiLisio in the round of 16, in a quarterfinal match Wednesday morning. It was the second time Johnson reached the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am semifinals, having made a similar run in 2018 at Norwood Hills.

   Despite the disappointing loss, Rogowicz reflected on a positive week at Stonewall, about 60 miles from her Yardley home.

   “Stonewall’s been great,” Rogowicz said. “It was a home game and I had a lot of friends and family out here.”

   Making the semifinals also earned Rogowicz exemptions into the next two U.S. Women’s Mid-Ams, next year at Brae Burn Country Club in West Newton, Mass. and in two years at a site that has yet to be determined.

   Thursday’s final tees off at 9 a.m. The winner gets to make a return trip to Pennsylvania for next year’s U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster Country Club, the William Flynn gem that is less than 40 miles from Stonewall.