LONGMEADOW, Massachusetts – Team Mass Golf took an early lead on Day 1 of the Griscom Cup on Wednesday and never looked back, walking off the Longmeadow Country Club green with a 4.5 point lead.
Mass Golf totaled 18.5 points, while the Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association trailed with 14. The Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia heads into Day 2 with 3.5 points.
The first round was a three-way, Nassau-style match-play competition. Two players from each team played foursomes (alternate shot) and were awarded one point for winning the front nine, one point for the back nine, and one point for the 18-hole round. Half-points were awarded in the event of halved matches.
Jennifer Keim (Bayberry Hills Golf Course) and Megan Buck (Thorny Lea Golf Club) led the Massachusetts squad with 3-0 match victories against WMGA and WGAP, contributing 6 total points to the team score.
“I thought we worked really well together,” Keim said. “We played together a ton before so I think that helped and we’re really good friends. When one had a bad shot, the other came back with a good shot.”
While the event marked Buck’s first Griscom Cup appearance since the COVID-19 pandemic, Keim has been part of the past five Mass Golf teams at the competition.
“It’s a really fun tournament,” Keim said. “This is my fifth year in a row playing in it and I think it’s just fun because we’re all used to playing against each other and now we’re a team. It’s fun to play with each other.”
First-time competitors Molly Smith (Vesper Country Club) and Christine Mandile (Winchester Country Club) totaled the second-most team points with 4.5, including a 2.5 against WGAP.
Shannon Johnson (Thorny Leda Golf Club) and Rebecca Skoler (Pine Brook Country Club) ended with a 3-0 match victory against WGAP to contribute to 4 team points. Allison Paik (The Cape Club of Sharon) and Angela Garvin (The Ranch Golf Club) also recorded 4 total points.
“I’m really excited and happy to hear that everyone got above 3 points out of the 6 points, so each team actually won more points than they gave away,” team captain Chelsea Curtis (The Country Club) said. “So it was a really good experience.”
The only duo to win a match against Mass Golf was WMGA’s Jennifer Rosenberg (Glen Oaks Club) and Kaitlyn Lee (Westchester Country Club). Rosenberg and Lee totaled 2 points against the Massachusetts team and finished with 5 team points, the second-most of any pair behind Keim and Buck.
The competition continues Thursday with a round of singles matches.
The Sweepstakes Round took place on Wednesday morning before the Championship Round, with Curtis’ team emerging victorious after registering a 14-under 58.
The round featured a net-best ball foursome format with players from Mass Golf, WMGA and WGAP mixed together on each team.
Pro shop credit was awarded to the top teams.
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TEAM MASS GOLF
| Megan Buck | Jennifer Keim |
| Chelsea Curtis | Christine Mandile |
| Shannon Johnson | Rebecca Skoler |
| Allison Paik | Molly Smith |
| Angela Garvin | Co-Captains: Sally DeGan and Chelsea Curtis |
TEAM WGAP
| Isabella DiLisio | Samantha Perrotta |
| Catherine Elliott | Jackie Rogowicz |
| Laura Hammond | Karen Siegel |
| Stephanie Harris | Jessica Weikel |
| Lauren Jones | Captain: Liz Hanes |
TEAM WMGA
| Paige Diecidue | Emily Montagnino |
| Sammie Dolce | Emily Renoff |
| Kaitlyn Lee | Jennifer Rosenberg |
| Corinna Limbocker | Pasqualina Tartaglione |
| Noelle Maertz | Captain: Katie Renoff |
The history of the Griscom Cup began in 1898 when WGAP initiated an inter-city competition against a team from the all-women’s Morris Country Club in New Jersey. The WMGA was established in 1899 and assumed responsibility for selecting the New York team in 1900. Boston joined to make it a three-city competition in 1902. The competition has been held every year since except for the two World War periods, in 1984 due to weather, and in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
WMGA and WGAP lead with 43 wins and three ties each, while Mass Golf sits at 28 wins. Massachusetts’ most recent win came in 2019 when the Mass Golf team defeated WMGA by a 2-point margin. Mass Golf has three other wins since the turn of the century, taking home the Cup in 2008, 2009 and 2016.
Longmeadow Country Club’s course and landscape were designed by the legendary Donald Ross and famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, respectively. The course was featured by Architecture magazine in 1926 after its completion.
The Club was also the home of the United States’ first metal-shafted golf clubs, which were developed and tested by co-founder Milton Reach Sr. — an executive at A.G. Spalding Bros., the world’s largest sporting goods manufacturer at the time — as well as Longmeadow head professional J. Victor East and golf icon Bobby Jones.
Jones joined Longmeadow as an official member a year after the clubs hit the market and became Spalding’s most highly compensated executive. Jones led Spalding’s marketing and endorsement-deal efforts, which he used to attract numerous other high-profile golfers to the Club.
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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