Stasi ready to captain a talented U.S. team as the Curtis Cup tees off at Sunningdale

 

   The United States team that will tee it up against Great Britain & Ireland in the 43^rd Curtis Cup Match, which gets under way Friday at Sunningdale Golf Club in Berkshire, England, will be captained by a player in Meghan Stasi who is a master of the intricacies of that most inscrutable of golf competitions: Match play.

   Stasi, who resides in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. these days, was Meghan Bolger when, playing out of Tavistock Country Club, she rattled off seven straight victories in the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship from 1999 to 2005.

   That catapulted Stasi to four victories in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship. She represented the United States in the 2008 Curtis Cup Match at the Old Course at St. Andrews, which had its teeth out over the weekend for the AIG Women’s Open Championship won by newly minted LPGA Hall of Famer Lydia Ko.

   The U.S. team was completed in the wake of the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Southern Hills Country Club a couple of weeks ago and one of the choices for the USGA’s International Team Selection working group was an easy one as Rachel Kuehn of Asheville, N.C. became just the 25^th player to wear the Red, White & Blue in a Curtis Cup Match at least three times.

   Kuehn has accounted for the clinching point in each of her previous two Curtis Cup appearances, the 2021 edition, delayed more than a year by the coronavirus pandemic, at Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire, Wales and 10 months later when the Curtis Cup was contested in Philadelphia’s backyard at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course in the Ardmore section of Haverford Township.

   It duplicated the feat of her mother Brenda Corrie Kuehn, who picked up the clinching point in a U.S. victory in 1998 at The Minikahda Club in Minneapolis.

   Got a chance to spend part of a very hot day on the golf course with Brenda Corrie Kuehn, with Rachel’s dad Eric on the bag, for a practice round for the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Stonewall’s North Course last summer. A practice round is always a little relaxed, but Team Kuehn was a fun pair to be on the golf course with that day.

   Rachel Kuehn had a wildly successful college career at Wake Forest, helping the Demon Deacons capture their first NCAA crown in the spring of 2023. She could have turned pro by now, but when Kuehn showed up for a practice session for candidates for the U.S. Curtis Cup team in January in Florida, it was obvious she had her sights set on another opportunity to represent her country against GB&I.

   I’ve been at Merion for a Walker Cup in 2009 and for the Curtis Cup in 2022 and they are just among the coolest events in golf, period.

   The Curtis Cup is often played in June, but, for whatever reason, the 43^rd edition will be played on Labor Day weekend this year. So if Kuehn has professional ambitions, she would have to put them on hold for the whole summer.

   The 23-year-old Kuehn, however, played a fifth year at Wake, capturing the Atlantic Coast Conference’s individual crown and nearly dragging the Demon Deacons into the match-play bracket at the NCAA Championship in May at the Omni LaCosta Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.

   Kuehn, No. 10 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), reached the second round of match play in the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Southern Hills before falling to Maria Jose Marin, the native of Colombia and a sophomore at Arkansas who was the medalist in qualifying.

   Kuehn’s lofty standing in the Women’s WAGR and her Curtis Cup experience made her selection to this year’s U.S. team a no-brainer, but Kuehn was excited to get the call nonetheless.

   “I am incredibly honored and excited to represent the USA again in a Curtis Cup Match,” Kuehn told the USGA website. “It’s not something I ever take for granted and it’s a dream come true every time to be part of such a storied tradition.

   “Playing alongside these amazing athletes and competing on behalf of our country is a tremendous privilege and I can’t wait to get started.”

   Kuehn will be the only holdover from the tremendous group that represented the U.S. at Merion and was one of five players who teed it up in the unusual happenstance of two Curtis Cups in 10 months created by the coronavirus pandemic.

   With the exception of Kuehn, it will be an entirely new cast this time around and I’m sure Stasi will be counting on Kuehn’s leadership as not just a veteran of two Curtis Cups, but as a veteran of a Curtis Cup in enemy territory. They’ll be nice about it, but the largely partisan crowd will not be rooting for the Yanks.

   One of Kuehn’s U.S. teammates might be a little bit of a surprise as Melanie Green, a 22-year-old from Medina, N.Y. who was the American Athletic Conference Player of the Year at South Florida was one of five players chosen to round out the team last week.

   But Green, No. 32 in the Women’s WAGR, tasted victory at Portmarnock Golf Club outside of Dublin, Ireland in the Royal & Ancient’s Women’s Amateur Championship earlier this summer. Green defeated Lorna McClymont, a 23-year-old Scot, 2-up in the 36-hole final. Green was the first American to win the Women’s Amateur Championship since Kelli Kuehne did it in 1996.

   Kuehn, Green and two of the other members of the U.S. Curtis Cup team, Zoe Campos, a 21-year-old from Valencia, Calif. and a senior at UCLA, and Catherine Park, a 19-year-old from Irvine, Calif. and a junior at Southern California, were also part of the U.S. team of collegians that came out on top in the Palmer Cup in early July at Lahinch Golf Club, also in Ireland.

   It was not long after the Palmer Cup that the USGA announced the first three members of the U.S. team. The top three Americans in the Women’s WAGR at the time are automatic qualifiers and that trio was Campos, No. 4 in the latest Women’s WAGR, Park, No. 7 in the latest Women’s WAGR, and their fellow Californian, Jasimine Koo, an 18-year-old from Cerritos, Calif. who is No. 6 in the latest Women’s WAGR.

   Campos was one of the best players in college golf during the wraparound 2023-’24 season, winning the individual crown in the final edition of the Pac-12 Championship – at least as we’ve always known it – and leading the Bruins to the NCAA Championship’s Final Match at LaCosta before they fell to Stanford.

   Park finished in a tie for second place in the NCAA Championship’s individual chase behind Rose Zhang as a freshman in 2023 at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. and led the Trojans to the Final Match, where they fell to Wake Forest.

   Park had the Trojans in the thick of the national championship race again in the spring as she helped them reach the semifinals at LaCosta before falling to eventual winner Stanford.

   Koo is joining Park at Southern Cal, which will give the Trojans a pretty formidable 1-2 punch at the top of the lineup as they join the Big Ten.

   Koo got hot for a stretch in the spring as she finished in a tie for third place in the girls division of the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley and in a tie for fourth place in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship.

   Koo reached the semifinals of the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, Calif. before falling to eventual winner Rianne Malixi.

   A couple of teammates from last spring’s Auburn team that earned a spot in the match-play bracket in the NCAA Championship at LaCosta, Anna Davis, an 18-year-old from Spring Valley, Calif., and Megan Schofill, a 23-year-old from Monticello, Fla., were also added to the U.S. roster following the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Southern Hills.

   Davis, No. 16 in the Women’s WAGR, burst on to the amateur golf scene with her stunning victory in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2022 while still in high school. Davis joined the Auburn program in midseason this year and immediately made the Tigers a national championship contender.

   Davis was the individual champion as the Tigers won at home in the NCAA Auburn Regional. Their bid at LaCosta ended with a loss to eventual champion Stanford in the quarterfinals.

   Davis made a run to the quarterfinals in the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Southern Hills, falling in a 21-hole thriller to Marin of Arkansas and Colombia.

   Schofill was the defending champion at Southern Hills, having captured the U.S. Women’s Amateur title a year earlier at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles.

   Like Kuehn, Schofill could have turned pro when the college season ended in May, but Schofill showed up at the practice session in Florida in January, clearly determined to represent the U.S. in the Curtis Cup.

   Schofill has made it through the match-play gauntlet of a U.S. Women’s Amateur to put her name on the Robert Cox Trophy. She’s played in high-leverage matches in college.

   Schofill, Park and California phenom Asterisk Talley, a 15-year-old from Chowchilla, Calif., shared low-amateur honors in the U.S. Women’s Open at the William Flynn gem that is Lancaster Country Club in early June.

   Which brings us to the final player on Stasi’s eight-player U.S. Curtis Cup team in Talley. The kid was the darling of the U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster. She had a clear lead in the race for low amateur when she was in tie for fifth place overall going into the weekend before coming back to earth a little.

   Yes, she is young and, at No. 39 in the Women’s WAGR, the lowest ranked player on the U.S. team, but Talley’s track record in 2024 was impossible to ignore. It started with a victory in the girls division at Sage Valley. She teamed with fellow Cali girl Sarah Lim to capture the title in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship at Oak Hills Country Club in San Antonio, Texas.

   Following her breakout performance in the U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster, Talley reached the final of both the U.S. Girls’ Junior at El Caballero and the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Southern Hills, losing to Malixi in both cases. That’s a lot of match wins in high-leverage USGA championships for the kid.

   The United States leads the Curtis  Cup series, 31-8-3, but the teams GB&I puts together these days are no pushovers.

   It was a really young U.S. team that last surrendered the Curtis Cup in 2016 at Dun Laoghaire Golf Club in suburban Dublin. That GB&I team was led by an Irish woman in Leona Maguire who has come a mainstay for the European side in the Solheim Cup.

   This GB&I team, like that one, will be led by the No. 1 player in the Women’s WAGR in Florida State junior Lottie Woad.

   Woad’s spring included a victory in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and a runnerup finish in the individual standings in the NCAA Championship at LaCosta.

   Woad’s tuneup for the Curtis Cup was a tie for 10^th place and low-amateur honors in last weekend’s AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews. I think she’s ready.

   Like the U.S. team with Kuehn, GB&I captain Catriona Matthew has a player making her third appearance in the Curtis Cup in 21-year-old Scot Hannah Darling, a senior at South Carolina who is No. 30 in the Women’s WAGR.

   Watched Darling play a little two summers ago at Merion and saw a player with a ton of upside. She will be a formidable match-play opponent.

   For a third straight Curtis Cup, Kuehn will be facing off against a Wake Forest teammate. In 2021 in Wales and in 2022 at Merion, it was Ireland’s Lauren Walsh who was a standout for GB&I and for the Demon Deacons.

   This time it’s Mimi Rhodes, a 22-year-old from England who was a teammate of Kuehn’s on Wake Forest’s first NCAA championship team in 2023.

   Rhodes is joined on the GB&I team by her little sister Patience Rhodes, a 20-year-old who is a redshirt sophomore at Arizona State.

   Also on the GB&I team is Patience Rhodes’ fellow Sun Devil, Beth Coulter, a 20-year-old from Ireland. Patience Rhodes and Coulter, a junior, helped Arizona State reach the NCAA Championship at LaCosta in the spring.

   Another Irish woman, 22-year old Aine Donegan, is on the GB&I roster. Donegan, No. 77 in the Women’s WAGR, is a senior at LSU and helped the Bayou Tigers earn a spot in the match-play bracket in the NCAA Championship at LaCosta in the spring.

   If her name sounds familiar, you might remember Donegan on the leaderboard following an opening-round 69 in the U.S. Women’s Open two summers ago at the Pebble Beach Golf Links. Donegan made the cut and played the weekend at Pebble Beach.

   You get the picture. This GB&I team is a force to be reckoned with.

   Meghan Stasi was a little busy this year, but she had been coming home to tee it up in the WGAP Match Play Championship in recent years and her total of titles has swelled to double digits at 10. The ninth came in 2022 at Tavistock, where it all began.

   She couldn’t have possibly imagined that it would lead her to the captainship of a U.S. Curtis Cup team in Berkshire, England. But that’s where Stasi will be when the 43^rd Curtis Cup Match tees off Friday. A lot of us in the Philadelphia area will be rooting a little extra hard for Team USA.