LONGMEADOW, Massachusetts – The 118th playing of the Inter-City Matches for the Griscom Cup came to a close Thursday as Team Mass Golf took back possession of the Cup with a 14.5-point margin of victory.
The Mass Golf team finished with 51 points. The Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association was second with 37.5 points, while the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia ended in third with 19.5 points.
Megan Buck (Thorny Lea Golf Club) finished with 3-0 match victories against both of her opponents, contributing 6 points to the team total of 32.5 singles points. Jennifer Keim (Bayberry Hills Golf Course) was close behind with 5.5 points, including a 3-0 win against WGAP’s Jessica Weikel (Huntingdon Valley Country Club). Shannon Johnson (Thorny Lea Golf Club) and Allison Paik (The Cape Club of Sharon) each totaled 5 singles points.
Molly Smith (Vesper Country Club) and Angela Garvin (The Ranch Golf Club) also secured 3-0 defeats of a singles opponent.
“I think we definitely knew it was going to be a challenge and we were gonna have to play well,” team captain Chelsea Curtis (The Country Club) said. “The other teams had really great players, college kids, amateurs, mid-ams who are very experienced and have been playing a lot of golf, so we knew we had to step it up and we did.”
Curtis was impressed with the team’s ability to gel on and off the course before the official competition even began, making an already team-oriented competition even more memorable.
“This was a special year but every year has been really great,” Curtis said of the Griscom Cup. “It’s one of my favorite tournaments for that reason. We get to come together as a team, play a format that we don’t usually get to play, and also see other people from other teams. There’s just such a sense of camaraderie, so it’s a great experience overall.”
Curtis was also impressed with how the Mass Golf squad handled the notoriously difficult course at Longmeadow, complimenting the team for playing “smart golf.”
Playing in Massachusetts has proved favorable for Team Mass Golf throughout the history of the Griscom Cup. Prior to 2022, the event had been held 36 times at Massachusetts courses, and Mass Golf walked away with a win at 20 of those matches. New York sits behind with 10 wins, while Philadelphia has recorded six victories in the Bay State.
Mass Golf’s last Griscom Cup win came at Worcester Country Club in 2019, headlined by a 6-point Day 2 performance from Garvin.
“It’s so cool to see the history and the fact that this tournament has been going on for so long and to be able to see the names on this cup,” Curtis said as she hoisted the historic Griscom Cup on behalf of Mass Golf.
Mass Golf’s Griscom Cup team featured three rookies — Rebecca Skoler (Pine Brook Country Club), Smith and Mandile. Smith was the team’s lone junior, while Skoler and Mandile are coming off their first collegiate seasons at Virginia and Richmond, respectively.
“I just came off a semester playing team golf so being here was super fun, especially playing with all the girls I grew up playing with,” Skoler said.
The trio contributed 7 team points during the singles round. Smith and Mandile were also partnered for the foursome matches on Day 1 and combined to score the second-most points of all Mass Golf pairs.
“We were pretty smooth all day yesterday,” Smith said of her round with Mandile. “No real flashy things but we just really didn’t make a lot of mistakes, lots of pars. It definitely helped playing with Christine, she brought snacks so that was good and we’re friends so we had lots of fun stuff to talk about.”
Rules officials Roberta Bolduc, Carolyn O’Donnell and Christine Veator, all of whom have officiating experience at the national level, roamed the green at Longmeadow on both days of the competition.
Recently featured in the MassGolfer magazine, Bolduc carries an impressive resume and is regarded as one of the most well-known and respected rules officials in the region. Her knowledge and passion for the game have afforded her memorable experiences at several USGA Championships, including the 1995 U.S. Girls Junior that was hosted at Longmeadow, her home club. Bolduc even traveled abroad as captain of the U.S. team in 2010 at the Women’s Amateur World Team Championships in Argentina and to other destinations such as Australia and Japan, where she served as a USGA Delegate and a Rules Official.
“My years of service have afforded me so many incredible friendships and memories,” said Bolduc. “I wouldn’t trade a day as it has been a truly rewarding experience. I would encourage anyone to think about becoming a volunteer rules official.”
O’Donnell has earned an “Expert” designation through the USGA and PGA through superb performance on the organizations’ Rules of Golf exam. She was also part of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) task force in 2020 that developed safe-play guidelines for interscholastic athletics in Massachusetts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Veator is coming off a stint with the 2022 NCAA Division II Women’s Golf Championship, for which she served on the planning committee and helped run the South Regional. She also served as a rules official at the 2021 NCAA Division III Championship, her first opportunity at the national level.
Candy Hannemann, the Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships at UnitedHealth Group in Massachusetts who is also a former LPGA Tour player, joined the group for dinner and a fireside chat after the first day of competition. Born and raised in Brazil, Hannemann shared her personal journey in golf and her experiences both as an amateur and as a professional.
A graduate of Duke University in 2002, Hannemann captured two NCAA team championships, in 1999 and 2002, and won the NCAA individual title in 2001. She was named the Honda Player of the Year in 2001, given to the best female athlete in each sport, and was inducted into the Duke University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2018. Hanneman enjoyed a 10-year career on the LPGA Tour with several top-10 finishes to her name.
Mass Golf is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that is dedicated to advancing golf in Massachusetts by building an engaged community around the sport.
With a community made up of over 100,000 golf enthusiasts and over 360 member clubs, Mass Golf is one of the largest state golf associations in the country. Members enjoy the benefits of handicapping, engaging golf content, course rating and scoring services along with the opportunity to compete in an array of events for golfers of all ages and abilities.
At the forefront of junior development, Mass Golf is proud to offer programming to youth in the state through First Tee Massachusetts and subsidized rounds of golf by way of Youth on Course.
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