Two teens earn spots in LPGA Monday Qualifier

+ Building Bay State Golf

Author

Sean Melia
August 23, 2024

Whitinsville GC

Hey Everyone,

It’s feeling a bit like August has switched places with June. This cooler, rainier weather usually precedes the sweltering months of July and August. Now it feels like it’s ushering in the fall. I wonder what a wet August means for fall foliage?

I took a quick trip to New York City with my mom to see Water for Elephants on Broadway. My brother and his buddies at Pig Pen Theatre Co. wrote the music. What a thrill. Give them a listen on Spotify.

I did get to squeeze in some golf this week. I got a lesson on Monday morning after some more hosel rockets appeared during my round at Whitinsville GC (also, that place rocks. I will share more later. I also played Kernwood CC on Wednesday morning. A very good, overlooked spot in Salem.

This week’s newsletter is a little different, as I have some personal news to share.

News and Notes:

  • AIG Women’s Open: Megan Khang (+2) and Alexa Pano (+3) battled the tough, windy conditions at St. Andrews on Thursday. Both are hovering just inside the cut line.

  • BMW Championship: After the first round, Keegan Bradley leads at Castle Pines. The Ryder Cup captain shot an opening round 66.

  • Mass Golf Invitational Qualifier at Worcester CC: In a very cool partnership, the FM Championship offered 10 women a chance to earn a spot in the Monday Qualifier for the FM Championship. Rising high school seniors Lillian Guleserian (-2) and Carys Fennessy (+3) nabbed the two available spots. Fennessy beat Emma Abramson on the second hole for the second spot. Quite the summer for Fennessy, who just won the New England Junior on Tuesday before this performance on Wednesday. MassGolf with the recap.

  • U.S. Senior Amateur: The Honors Course might be one of the country’s hardest courses, and it will welcome the best senior amateurs on Saturday. Doug Clapp, Don Foberg, and David Pierce will represent Massachusetts. The event starts on Saturday. USGA.

  • I wrote about the 2022 and 2024 Mass. Women’s Amateur champion Morgan Smith in my Wednesday newsletter. Check it out here.

Expanding Bay State Golf

If you didn’t know, I have been the editor of the New England Golf Journal since September 2022. Last week, it was announced that the website and magazine would be shutting down in September.

The news sucks. No way around it.

So what does that mean for me?

No clue.

I do know that I have more time to build out Bay State Golf, create more video and written content, make a dent in my quest to play every course in Massachusetts, and cover more players and events.

If you’d like to support my work and help me get out of the house to cover tournaments, meet interesting people, and play new golf courses, I’d be grateful.

There are three options:

The “Supporter” tier is $50 a year…it includes:

- Access to all my newsletters

- The ability to comment on posts

- Four subscriber-only videos over the course of the year (first one will be in September)

The “Founder” tier is $70.

It includes everything in the Supporter tier, along with a discount on merchandise and a one-time 30-minute Zoom call with me. We can talk about golf courses, plan a golf trip in New England or beyond, or whatever else you’d like to talk about.

The Friday newsletter will always be free, and the mid-week newsletters will always have a little something before the paywall for you to chew on.

If you have no interest in paying for any of my content, that’s fine! If $50 is too much, but you’d still like to support Bay State Golf and what I’m doing, there is a “Tipper” option where you can make a one-time payment as a tip for any amount you desire.

Everyone who signs up before Oct. 1 will also get a free Bay State Golf desk calendar with my favorite golf pictures from 2024.

I know the world is full of newsletters and it’s very cool to think that this is one you willingly open and read each week.

If you’d like to support Bay State Golf, help me make more content, and write more newsletters about this great game we all love, I’d be humbled if you joined as a Supporter or Founder.

Double Click(s)

  1. After the U.S. Amateur, Justin Golba and I recorded a recap podcast. We do this every Monday, so if you’re into amateur golf, it’s worth listening.

    There is a pretty strong contingent of U.S. Amateur winners on LIV. The finalists this year - Jose Luis Ballester and Noah Kent - have some strong ties to LIV. Claude Harmon is Kent’s swing coach. Harmon is also Brooks Koepka’s coach and Kent has played golf with Dustin Johnson and Koepka. Harmon has been outspoken about LIV, too.

    Ballester plays at Arizona State. That’s where Phil Mickelson, Jon Rahm, and David Puig played. Ballester is also Spanish and his swing coach is… drum roll, please… Victor Garcia. That’s Sergio’s dad.

    It seems that a lot of players signed 3-year contracts with LIV. That means we’re heading for a slew of new additions to LIV and guys like Kent and Ballester could be on the short list.

    Eamon Lynch wrote about some of this in Golfweek this week. 

Yet a day is nearing when Saudi subsidies cease to provide a dominant advantage when it comes to player rewards, because LIV’s irrational economy faces a retraction. A few player contracts expire in 2024, more in ’25. Some of the league’s stars have been told they won’t see renewals on the scale that lured them to LIV, so those who extend will be doing so for less. Assuming extensions are even offered. Perhaps they will be, but if no deal is reached between the Public Investment Fund and the PGA Tour, then the Saudi government has a call to make: throw good money after bad with another round of contracts for an execrable product with zero market traction, or cut loose. And they have been known to favor chopping those deemed inconvenient.

Eamon Lynch

  1. Looks like the PGA Tour’s models panned out and generated the kind of turnover they were hoping for. Robopz had been tracking it all year. 19 players from the Top 50 last year were replaced this year.

    I have no idea if this is a good thing or a bad thing or just a thing.

  1. This video of the U.S. Amateur participants trying to replicate one of Tiger’s most famous shots is awesome.

When I’m not golfing…

I’m reading…

I’m listening to….

  • Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm brought me back to college house parties.

  • I always love it when Bill Simmons has Chuck Klostermann on the podcast. Listen here.

  • A great Women’s (British) Open Championship deep dive from No Laying Up.

I’m drinking…

  • I had a couple of post-round fountain sodas this week. Sometimes, they hit better than a beer and make me less sleepy…

I’m eating…

  • Made these over the weekend… very good.

I’m watching…

  • Bad Monkey on Apple TV stars Vince Vaughn in his Vince Vaughniest. He plays a suspended detective who can’t get out of his own way, and when an arm shows up in Key West, he gets sucked into an investigation. It’s based on the book by Carl Hiaasen.

  • If you’re a golfer and have any issues with your short game, Dan Grieve is your man. His message is simple and easy to understand.

New here? Reached the bottom?

Hell Yeah.

You should subscribe.

Bay State Archives

I'm (shamelessly) plugging...

Reply

or to participate.