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Monday, July 8, 2024

Joy-Connelly earns spot in field for U.S. Senior Women's Open by taking medalist honors in qualifier at White Manor

 

   Couldn’t quite get to this during a busy June of junior golf, but Tara Joy-Connelly, whose bag I carried and pushed, depending on the weather forecast, during last September’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship, came to town last month and easily won medalist honors in a qualifier for the U.S. Senior Women’s Open at White Manor Country Club in Willistown Township.

   Joy-Connelly was still recovering from shoulder surgery from a freak injury that occurred in 2022 when a golf cart she was driving seized up on her when she arrived at Stonewall’s North Course for last year’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Am.

   As a senior “rookie,” Joy-Connelly had earned herself a spot in the field for last year’s U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Waverley Country Club in Portland, Ore. She failed to make the cut with rounds of 81 and 79 and a 16-over-par 160 total, but it was an important first step in returning to competition after basically spending a year on the shelf.

   Joy-Connelly will return to the U.S. Senior Women’s Open after carding a solid 4-over 75 in the qualifier administered by the Golf Association of Philadelphia at White Manor, which once hosted an LPGA event, the McDonald’s Kids Classic moving on DuPont Country Club and morphing with the LPGA Championship to become a major championship on the LPGA Tour.

   Joy-Connelly is from Middleborough, Mass. and is a Massachusetts native, but her husband, J.P. Connelly, the head pro at The Kitttansett Club in Marion, Mass., was a high school standout at Abington and is the son of Jack Connelly, the PGA of America Hall of Famer who was the longtime head pro at Huntingdon Valley Country Club. So Joy-Connelly knows some people in the Philly area.

   Joy-Connelly finished six shots clear of four players who finished in a tie for second place at White Manor, where just five spots in the U.S. Women’s Senior Open field were up for grabs. Of the five players who qualified for the U.S. Women’s Senior Open, only one was a pro, Yuko Ogura of Japan.

   The U.S. Senior Women’s Open will be played in Pennsylvania for the first time in its short six years of existence, teeing off Aug. 1 at Fox Chapel Golf Club, a Seth Raynor-Charles Banks classic, in suburban Pittsburgh.

   Joy-Connelly put together a steady round at White Manor. She made bogeys at the first, sixth, 14th and 16th holes before notching her lone birdie of the day at 17. She closed her round with a bogey at White Manor’s uphill finishing hole, but nobody threatened her 4-over total for medalist honors.

   Joy-Connelly arrived at Stonewall for last year’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Am a little more than a month after last year’s U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Waverley.

   Could have played better, but Joy-Connelly never stopped battling and she survived a two-hole playoff among eight players for one of the three spots remaining in the match-play bracket.

   I’ve chronicled the tension that exists in that playoff situation in one of the posts I did following last year’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Am, but the playoff came the morning after the 36 holes of qualifying and after several groups had to finish up their second round of qualifying on a Monday morning.

   Joy-Connelly delivered a tremendous tee shot at Stonewall North’s testy par-3 ninth hole, first swing of the day, mind you, and then made a spectacular two-putt from 70 feet at Tom Doak’s wild and crazy green complex at the 10th to get into match play.

   Joy-Connelly lost in the opening round of match play to Jackie Rogowicz, the former Pennsbury and Penn State standout who is basically the top women’s amateur player in Pennsylvania right now. Rogowicz was one of the three qualifying co-medalists at Stonewall’s North Course.

   But Joy-Connelly had shown her mettle against a field filled with younger players.

   Less than a month later, Joy-Connelly finished in a tie for third place in qualifying for match play in her U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur debut at Troon Country Club in Scottsdale, Arz.

   She ran into a buzzsaw in the second round of match play at Troon, falling to Sarah LeBrun Ingram, the captain of the U.S. team at the Curtis Cup Match at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course in June of 2022. The 57-year-old Ingram had been one of the two other survivors of the playoff to get into match play at the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am, along with Joy-Connelly, that Monday morning at Stonewall’s North Course.

   Joy-Connelly, who played her college golf at Miami, had been a mainstay on the Florida amateur circuit while her husband worked as a club pro in South Florida early in his career.

   Joy-Connelly teed it up in the Jones/Doherty Senior Women’s Amateur Championship, one of the stops on the unofficial Orange Blossom Tour for amateur women at Coral Ridge Country Club in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. in January and won the thing, knocking off former Arizona women’s golf coach Shelly Haywood, 3 and 2, in the final.

   Joining Japan’s Ogura in the quartet tied for second place in the U.S. Women’s Senior Open qualifier at White Manor at 10-over 81 were amateurs Stephenie Harris of Furlong, Bucks County, Monica Pedano, the head coach of the golf team at Shipley when she’s not being a wealth management adviser, and Dawn Swit of Chagarin Falls, Ohio.

   I can never seem to find much on Harris while searching around on the Internet, but she was one of the players who advanced to the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Fiddlesticks Country Club’s Long Mean Course in Fort Myers, Fla. in 2022 out of a qualifier at the same Stonewall North Course that would host the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am a year later. Harris was playing out of Lookaway Golf Club two summers ago, but it looks like she's joined Huntingdon Valley Country Club since then.

   Like Joy-Connelly, Japan’s Ogura and Pedano were also in the field for last summer’s U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Waverley.

   Looks like four players at White Manor played off for two alternate spots after each recorded an 83.

   Angie Whitley Coleman of Wilmington, Del. earned the first alternate spot and Tina Paternostro, a pro from Hilton, N.Y., claimed the second alternate spot.

   Paternostro’s name rang a bell and I checked the trusty list of PIAA results and, sure enough, Paternostro capped a strong four-year scholastic career at Williamsport High by capturing the PIAA crown as a senior in 1987. She went on to star collegiately at Georgia.

   Lisa McGill, the veteran amateur from Sunnybrook Golf Club, was also in the foursome at 83. McGill earned a spot in match play in the U.S. Women’s Senior Amateur in 2021 at Waverley in Portland.

   The last member of the quartet that finished in a tie for sixth place was Jennifer Cully of St. Petersburg, Fla.

   I suspect Joy-Connelly will give it her best shot to get into the field for this summer’s U.S Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship since it will something of a home game for her at Brae Brun Country Club in West Newton, Mass.

   Wouldn’t be surprised to see Joy-Connelly try to earn a spot in the U.S. Women’s Senior Amateur, which will be played at the Broadmoor Golf Club in Seattle, Wash. She has clearly been competitive in her short time as a senior player.

   Called up the U.S. Women’s Senior Open on the USGA website and was greeted by the news that a special exemption had been granted to the great Carol Semple Thompson, the World Golf Hall of Famer from Sewickley.

   One of the finest moments of Semple Thompson’s brilliant career came at Fox Chapel when she holed a 27-foot putt to clinch a victory for the United States over Great Britain & Ireland in the 2002 Curtis Cup Match.

   I was the opposing looper when Semple Thompson won one of her 22 Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur crowns in 1979 at Merion’s East Course. I was on the bag for Laura Lecker of St. Mary’s. I think both Lecker and me knew we were in the presence of greatness that day, which probably contributed to the loss.

   But there was certainly no shame in losing to Semple Thompson. At age 75, Semple Thompson will be teeing it up in her 122nd USGA event at Fox Chapel. Just try to wrap your head around that number for a few minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

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