Columbia ready for wide-open women’s city golf championship
The annual Sonic Columbia Women’s City Golf Championship unfolds Monday and Tuesday at Woodlands Country Club, and tournament officials predict wide-open competition in the event’s four divisions.
“We have great participation overall, a really diverse field,” tournament chair Lynn Holmes said in previewing the 36-hole event.
Madison Branum, a River Bluff High graduate who plays at Indiana State, owns the lowest handicap index in the championship division at 1.5, and will face a field that includes three former champions — Suzy Ellison, Karin Wolfe and Lynn Humphrey.
“But that was a long time ago,” said Ellison, a former USC player, U.S. Women’s Open participant and teaching professional who regained her amateur status in 2016.
Ellison won the Columbia title four times, 1985-87 and ’89, and said, “The last time I played in the tournament was 1990 or ’91, the year Jan (Flynn) won at Lexington.”
Ellison, who operated teaching facilities for 30 years, is a cancer survivor and said, “I’ve been on the shelf a long time. I got the clubs out and asked myself, ‘Let’s see if I can do this?’ ”
She played well enough to finish third in the 2019 Women’s State Amateur’s State Division last week at Dataw Island Club.
Will Ellison, playing on her home course, be the favorite to win her fifth city championship? “I do not think so,” she said.
Wolfe, the city winner in 1996 and 2005, Louise Givens, Suzann Bartley and Natalie Huff all finished in the top 11 in the Women’s State Amateur’s State Division.
Susan Shealy, who oversees the tournament’s registration, said competition in the City Division, which plays from slightly shorter tees, “is really going to be competitive. A lot of the handicap indexes are very close.”
Nancy Dodge, who finished in the top 10 in the Women’s State Amateur’s State Division, will be seeking her fourth straight title, and sixth overall, in the Columbia tournament’s senior division.
The junior division, inaugurated in 2018, lost some players to the State Junior Girls championship, set later in the week. Parker Stalvey, a Blythewood High graduate who won the City’s championship division two years ago, ranks among the junior favorites.
The junior division champion will receive a sponsor’s exemption into the WSCGA State Junior Girls tourney.
“We’re going to have a terrific tournament,” Lynn Holmes predicted. “The Woodlands is a good test, and the new ownership had done a great job in investing in the quality of the course and facilities.
“Golf needs more people playing, and girls especially need more competitive opportunities. That’s the reason we added the girls’ division.”
Proceeds benefit the Big Red Barn Retreat, a facility that offers a variety of therapeutic services for military personnel and their families at no cost.
Notes:
Dawn Woodard (Greer) won her eighth WSCGA State Amateur championship at Dataw Island, topping Carolyn Cadone’s seven titles that had stood since 1976. A former Furman player, Woodard edged Sophia Burnett (Bluffton), a rising high school senior, and College of Charleston golfer Jodee Tindal (Rock Hill). Pam Prescott (Pickens) dominated the State Division. . . . Austin Scott (Daniel Island) edged JT Herman (Hilton Head Island) on the second playoff hole to capture the title in the rain-shortened SCGA State Junior Championship at CC of Lexington. . . . The WSCGA State Junior Girls championship is set for June 21-23 and a qualifier for the U.S. Junior Girls follows on June 24 at Mount Vintage Plantation in North Augusta. . . . Eddie Hargett (Blythewood), Steve Larick (Lexington) and Kevin King (Bluffton) have qualified for the U.S. Senior Open, set June 27-30 in South Bend, Ind. Larick and King earned their spots at Wexford Plantation on Hilton Head Island. Hargett advanced in a sectional in Silver Springs, Md. . . . Jeff and Weston Bell captured the SCGA’s Dudley-Sullivan Father-Son title at Greenville CC’s Chanticleer Course.