Stasi watches her U.S. team reclaim the Curtis Cup with a hard-fought victory over GB&I at Bel-Air

 

   Could you possibly have a better Curtis Cup Match than Meghan Stasi, then Meghan Bolger, had in 2008 at the home of golf, the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland?

   Stasi played on a winning United States side that included future major champion Stacy Lewis and captained by the great Carol Semple Thompson, a future World Golf Hall of Fame inductee from western Pennsylvania.

   At some point that week, Danny Stasi, owner and chef of Shuck ’n Dive, a Fort Lauderdale Fla. restaurant that featured Chef Staz’s cajun specialties, proposed marriage to Meghan on the iconic Swilcan Bridge on the 18^th hole at the Old Course. She said yes.

   And yet, somehow, maybe it was an even better Curtis Cup Match for Stasi, completing her second term as the United States captain, Sunday with the sun setting on Bel-Air Country Club in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, Calif. as she watched her youthful U.S. stars gut out a 13-7 victory over Great Britain & Ireland to reclaim a Curtis Cup the U.S. had lost two years earlier at Sunningdale Golf Club in Berkshire, England.

   If there is such a thing as fate, it might have been at work Sunday when Kary Hollenbaugh, who recently completed an outstanding career at The Ohio State University and with the outcome long since clinched, earned her first point of the weekend with a 1-up decision over English woman Lilly Hirt, to set the final score at 13-7, the exact same score the U.S. won by 18 years ago when Stasi was a player on the U.S. team at St. Andrews.

   “Cannot describe it,” Stasi, 10-time winner of the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship, told the USGA website. “Just so proud of the girls, their fight all week. It’s just been so much fun to watch the last couple years and just so proud of them.”

   There is an inextricable link that develops between a captain and her or his players in these Curtis Cup and Walker Cup affairs.

   Stasi will closely follow the futures of this immensely talented group that played for the U.S. in this 44^th Curtis Cup Match.

   Stasi had twice captured the title in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship when she played on the U.S. team at St. Andrews and would claim that crown two more times after that. She is, much like her male counterpart who will captain the U.S. men for a second cycle later this summer at Lahinch in Ireland, Nathan Smith, a match-play impresario.

   At both Sunningdale and again this year at Bel-Air, the George C. Thomas gem, Stasi was contending with a most formidable GB&I captain in Catriona Matthew, a Solheim Cup star as both a player and a captain.

   And this GB&I team took on the tenacity of the tough Scot as it did in its 10.5-9.5 victory at Sunningdale.

   Stasi had the luxury of bringing back three players from the U.S. roster at Sunningdale in Jasmine Koo, a junior to be at Southern California and No. 12 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), Asterisk Talley, the gifted 17-year-old from Chowchilla, Calif. and No. 8 in the Women’s WAGR, and Anna Davis, a senior-to-be at Auburn and No. 18 in the Women’s WAGR.

   It is the two days of partner play, four-ball matches in the morning and foursomes matches in the afternoon, that often set the tone for a Curtis Cup Match. And, with its experience, the U.S. was able to take a 7-5 advantage into the Sunday Singles.

   On paper, the U.S. had the advantage with its talent spelled out on the Women’s WAGR list. Avery Weed, a senior-to-be at Mississippi State, was the lowest-ranked U.S. player at No. 30.

   But this GB&I team could care less. It won the first two singles matches Sunday and had leads in several others.

   English woman Patience Rhodes, a senior-to-be at Arizona State and No. 20 in the Women’s WAGR, rallied from an early 4-down deficit to pull out a 1-up decision over Kelly Xu, who “walked” in her Stanford graduation in a special ceremony that preceded the Sunday Singles.

   The rest of her Stanford class was graduating while Xu, a member of two national championship teams with the Cardinal and No. 14 in the Women’s WAGR, was playing her match with Rhodes Sunday.

   Rhodes played a huge role in GB&I’s victory two years ago in Sunningdale and her victory over Xu gave her a 4-1 record at Bel-Air.

   English woman Sophia Fullbrook, a junior-to-be at Florida State and No. 38 in the Women’s WAGR, hit a tremendous approach into the green at the 18^th hole to finish off a hard-fought 1-up victory over Weed.

   GB&I had drawn even at 7-7.

   The U.S. swept the rest of the matches, but it was never easy.

   Koo was 4-down after losing the 11^th hole to Hollenbaugh’s Ohio State teammate Nellie Ong, No. 59 in the Women’s WAGR, before Koo staged a remarkable rally to claim a 1-up verdict.

   Oregon senior-to-be Kiara Romero, the No. 1 player in the Women’s WAGR, was locked in a tense battle with Isla McDonald-O’Brien, No. 97 in the Women’s WAGR, and they were dead even heading to the 18^th tee.

   McDonald-O’Brien was a teammate of Rhodes at Arizona State the last two seasons, but is transferring to Southeastern Conference power Texas later this summer. She conceded a birdie to Romero on the final hole and the ship was being righted for the U.S.

   The precocious Talley was taken to the 17^th hole before claiming a 2 and 1 victory over Davina Xanh, who recently wrapped up her college career at Cal State Fullerton.

   That left the stage for Texas senior-to-be Farah O’Keefe, crowned the NCAA’s individual champion last month at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. and No. 3 in the Women’s WAGR.

   O’Keefe struggled early and found herself 2-down with seven holes to play to a talented youngster in Charlotte Naughton, who will join the program at Alabama later this summer and is No. 88 in the Women’s WAGR.

   Naughton started to struggle and O’Keefe won four straight holes with pars to take a 2-up lead with two holes to play. That clinched a half-point that assured the Curtis Cup was coming back to the U.S.

   When O’Keefe holed a three-footer for par on the 17^th hole, she wrapped up a 2 and 1 victory and a 5-0 weekend, joining Lewis, Kristen Gillman, and GB&I’s Bronte Law as the only players to go a perfect 5-0 since the format was changed from two days to three days.

   Stasi had put Davis, the left-hander who burst into the golf world’s consciousness when she won the title in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship at age 16 in 2022, in the anchor position.

   And Davis quietly let it be known that, had it gotten to her, she was going to get the job done as she earned a 4 and 3 victory over Beth Coulter, a native of Northern Ireland who recently completed her career at Arizona State.

   The two sides will reconvene in two years at another neat site, Royal Dornoch Golf Club in Scotland.

   Someone else will captain what will likely be a completely different cast of characters on the U.S. side.

   She will have a hard time matching the Curtis Cup experience of Meghan Stasi, a legend in South Jersey, where she was a junior phenom, and a legend in South Florida, where she became a star on the national amateur scene.

   The game has taken Meghan Stasi to some incredible places and given her some incredible memories. Watching her girls battle to a victory in a Curtis Cup Match in the fading sunlight of a Los Angeles Sunday just might be the best of them all.