Morgan Smith keeps betting on herself and winning

Hey Everyone,

It’s a midweek post! There will be more of these in the future. They will focus on golf courses, my quest, thoughts on the game of golf in general, regional results, and competitors from the Bay State.

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News and Notes:

• Senior Hornblower: With rounds of 69-68 (-1) John Hadges won by the slimmest of margins over five golfers at Plymouth CC. It looked like Hadges would have to win the Senior Hornblower in a playoff. Jim Patterson was in the last group on Tuesday after shooting a 68 in the first round. However, he made a bogey on the tough 18th hole to slide into that five-way tie for second. Hadges made a double bogey on the fourth hole, but then didn’t drop a shot the rest of the round. He birdied hole Nos. 8, 13, and 16. An impressive 33 on the back nine secured the win. Results.

• NE Junior Amateur: Another playoff win for CJ Winchenbaugh. He shot 65-72 in the rain-shortened event out at GreatHorse. Josiah Hakala took advantage of the soft conditions on Tuesday and shot a 64 to tie Winchenbaugh at 7-under par. Winchenbaugh, who will play at Georgetown this fall, beat Hakala on the third playoff hole. In July, Winchenbaugh won the New England Amateur after shooting a final round 61 and breaking the course record at Laconia CC in New Hampshire. He beat rising junior at Vanderbilt, John Broderick, in a playoff.

  New Hampshire’s Carys Fennessy was the only golfer on the girls’ side to shoot under par. Recording a 2-under-par score and beating Rhode Island’s Olivia Williams by six shots. Interestingly, Fennessy also won the NE Women’s Amateur in a one-hole playoff. Cool to see Fennessy and Winchenbaugh both get the double.

  On the team side, the Massachusetts boys team beat Connecticut by a shot.

  Rhode Island took home the girls’ crown. NH and RI tied at 14-over. To break the tie, the third golfer for RI, Adriana Eaton, shot 79 to break the tie. Massachusetts was one shot off the pace in a very close battle. Final recap.

• Mass. Senior Women’s Amateur: Doesn’t seem surprising that Pam Kuong and Tara Joy Connelly finished 1-2. Kuong edged out Connelly by a single shot at Crestwood Country Club to win her fourth Mass. Senior Women’s Amateur. Final recap.

• Megan Khang was in the final group of the Scottish Women’s Open. A tough fourth-round 74 dropped her into a tie for third place. Still a strong showing as she gets ready for the Women’s Open Championship at St. Andrews this week and the FM Championship at TPC Boston over Labor Day Weekend.

• Mass. Women’s Amateur: It took just 14 holes for Morgan Smith to beat Julia Imai in the championship at Taconic GC. Smith beat her sister, Molly, in a much-anticipated semi-final duel that required 19 holes to find a winner.

Morgan Smith’s Rise

Morgan Smith won her second Mass. Women’s Amateur last week. Her first came in 2022, a summer when she graduated from Molly Smith’s sister to New England Amateur and Mass. Women’s Amateur champion.

It didn’t come easily for Morgan Smith. Yes, her younger sister Molly was the one making headlines and grabbing attention, but Morgan had game, too. She knew it, and she set out to make sure it was obvious to everyone else.

Morgan’s college recruiting experience stunk. She was impacted by COVID-19 both because it was tough for coaches to see her play and because a wave of players was sticking around for an extra year (or two), meaning teams had fewer spots for recruits.

What did Morgan do?

She bet on herself.

In the winter of her senior year at Westford Academy, she hit the gym hard and added 11 mph of swing speed. The chip on her shoulder from the college recruiting process seemed to be driving her. She had decided to attend Phillips Exeter for a Post-Graduate year. Roster spots were going to open up, and she was going to jump on everyone’s radar.

Before she stepped foot on Exeter’s campus, Morgan had a college team. Georgetown came calling after she shot 7-under par in the New England Women’s Amateur to win by 12 shots and then backed that up with a Mass. Women’s Am victory 6 weeks later, where she beat University of Virginia golfer Rebecca Skoler at The Orchards in South Hadley. Smith would defend her New England Women’s Amateur championship in 2023, outdueling Molly in the final round.

One big piece of the puzzle for Smith was gaining distance.

At Taconic last week, she overwhelmed the course and her final opponent - Julia Imai - with her distance. According to MassGolf’s recap, she had “9-irons and wedges into most greens.”

She told MassGolf after her victory, “I want to hit it farther than where I’m hitting it now, and I think that will help my golf game get to the next level,” she said. “You have to want to hit it hard, and when I was 17, I was just trying to hit fairway finders and to play at the next level, you can’t be hitting fairway finders; you need to be going after it.”

After watching the U.S. Women’s Amateur last week and the U.S. Amateur this weekend, it’s clear that ball speed is the thing. Rianne Malixi, who won the U.S. Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur championships this summer, is a 15-year-old who swings with reckless abandon. The attitude of swinging as hard as possible made the leap from the men’s game to the women’s game.

Hit it hard.

Find it.

Figure it out from there.

The next level for Smith is the University of Georgia. After a successful year at Georgetown, where she won Big East Freshman of the Year, Smith is heading a little farther south to Athens. Incredibly, it will be Smith’s fourth school in four years. Smith believes she has more to prove, and Georgia is going to provide that opportunity. It’s a Power 5 school and perennially in the top 25 nationally.

The new head coach, Erika Brennan, is bringing in four transfers, including another New England-based player. Chantal El-Chaib dominated for Sacred Heart over the last four years.

Jumping into the portal was another example of Smith betting on herself. While some might wonder why she’d leave Georgetown for Georgia, the seriousness of the golf programs probably has something to do with it. Given her growth over the last three years, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Morgan make a run at professional golf after her time at Georgia. The path has changed for Morgan over these last couple of years.

It’s been an incredible stretch for Smith, and it’s all because she continues to take chances on and off the golf course.