NORTON, Massachusetts – The Junior Inter-City Tournament for the Enos Cup is back in 2021 after having been canceled last year due to COVID-19. The resumption of the event will mark the 80th playing of the tournament. This year, team Mass Golf will be represented by six girls junior golfers hoping to put on a strong display of golf for the Bay State.
Mass Golf is going to be represented by a wide range of players at this year’s event. The eldest of the group will be 18-year-old Madalin Small (Newton Commonwealth Golf Course). Following her is Julianne Flynn, 17, (Harmon Golf Club) and Eleanor Parkerson (NEPGA), 16. Rounding out the group is a pair of younger players: Kyla Maletto, 15, (Youth on Course); Abby Stone, 15, (Oak Hill CC); and Mya Murphy, 14, (MIAA).
The competition will take place June 29-30 at Arcola Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey.
The event begins with practice/sweepstakes round on Day 1. On Day 2, it’ll be a Nassau match featuring one player from each state, where 1 point is awarded for winning the first nine holes, 1 point for winning the second nine holes, and 1 point for winning the 18-hole match. If any matches are halved, then a half-point is awarded. The team that accumulates the greatest amount of points will be declared the winner.
“This is a different kind of format than a lot of golfers are used to playing,” said Naomi Nesenoff, Mass Golf’s Manager of Women’s Events & Player Development who will be traveling to New Jersey with the group. “However, they get to play at an amazing golf course with these other girls and get to travel. There are so many benefits to participating and representing Mass Golf for these junior girls.”
Nesenoff previously attended a Junior Inter-City match in 2010 as an intern, and she still has fond memories of the experience over 10 years later.
“I remember the girls were sleeping over at one of the host person’s house, and I remember having these deep conversations with the girls about their lives and golf,” she said. “The camaraderie, getting to know the girls and talking about their futures while really getting to know them and seeing what their paths are, is great.”
Madalin Small just graduated from Newton South High School and is committed to Butler University. The idea of playing in the Junior Inter-City Team Match is one that brings her a lot of excitement and anticipation.
“I love the team aspect of golf,” Small said. “I haven’t really gotten that besides high school, and even then, I was on a boys’ team. So, I was just excited to be able to have a team of girls before I go off to college and get a little bit of that experience. I was really excited to be selected for that and be asked to play, I jumped right on it.”
As the eldest member of the team, Small will look to tap into some of that high school experience she holds to provide some guidance to her younger teammates.
“I was captain on my high school team for two years,” Small said. “I have a little bit of that experience of being kind of like a leader in a sense. Then age-wise, I had a lot of freshmen on my high school team, which is surprising, but we were very young and it was good to build relationships with them.”
The event holds strong meaning for the younger plays of the team too. When Abby Stone got the call asking to participate, she couldn’t say yes quickly enough.
“I was so excited,” Stone said. I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to play on a team with the other girls.”
Having not won the event since 1999, team Mass Golf will look to break the dry spell in 2021, all while creating some new and lasting memories along the way.
The Junior Inter-City matches features a group of six females representing their state. Massachusetts, New York, and Philadelphia are the participating teams and players must be under the age of 19 years old to be eligible to compete.
The inaugural Junior Intercity match took place between the Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association (WMGA) and the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia (WGAP) in 1934. The event trophy was donated by the “mother” of WMGA junior golf, Mrs. Frank Enos.
After 21 years, Massachusetts began fielding a team of eight players to expand the event into the tri-state matches they’ve become today. Now, as the 80th playing of the event approaches, the competition has become revered for drawing some of the best junior golf competitors to compete with one another in an interstate match.
Dating back to 2011, the WMGA has captured seven of the nine event titles. The only years in which they were defeated were in 2015, when Philadelphia won at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey, and in 2019 when Philadelphia again won at Whitford Country Club in its home state of Pennsylvania.
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. Made up of 90,000 golfers statewide, Mass Golf is one of the largest state golf associations in the country. Presently, more than two-thirds of the 360-member clubs are public-access facilities, while nearly one-half of member golfers are enrolled at public facilities. Mass Golf offers its member’s services including handicapping, event access, youth programming and exciting golf content.
