By Steve Derderian
sderderian@massgolf.org
WILLIAMSTOWN, Massachusetts (August 12, 2024) — We’ll be on “mountain time” this week as the Massachusetts Women’s Amateur Championship gets underway at Taconic Golf Club in the Northwest corner of the state for the first time in the event’s 121-year history.
Out here in the scenic college town in the Berkshires, the state’s best female amateur golfers will compete this week for their spot in history as they vie for their place among the storied champions of the state’s longest-running amateur golf championship.
Here are three things to keep an eye on as the first 18 holes of stroke play take place on Monday.
Taconic is home to the Williams College women’s golf team, a Division III powerhouse that has had a varsity program for 20 years, won a national title in 2015, and has been a national runner-up twice since. Since the program gained varsity status in 2004, competitive scores below 70 at Taconic have been rare. One of the most recent of such performances came in the spring when Williams junior Gio Kim shot 2-under-par 69 in the opening round of the NESCAC Championship. She also shot 68 in the fall in the Williams College Invitational. Emma Abramson (The Ridge Club), who is entering her second season at Williams, shot 73-74 in the NESCAC Championship and will have a distinct home course advantage this week. Outside of college players, Irene McHarg held the women’s course record for several years with a 72.
While the No. 1 goal for the elite field is to make match play, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see at least one low score to set the tone in Round 1. Since stroke play qualifying for match play moved to a 36-hole format in 2019, there has been at least one round under par each year. Three years ago, Rebecca Skoler shot a course-record 64 at Plymouth Country Club to open the event, followed by Morgan Smith (Mount Pleasant Golf Club), going under par in both rounds of the 2022 championship en route to the title. Her sister Molly Smith shot the only under-par round (68) in last year’s championship.
Superintendent Jim Easton has the greens up to championship speed, so we should see the course playing in peak form.
This year’s champion could very well come from the 11:07 a.m. group today. Fresh off her match play appearance in the U.S. Women’s Amateur last week, Morgan Smith is paired with young standouts Annie Dai (Student Member/MIAA) and Lillian Guleserian (Blue Hill Country Club). Smith, who is transferring to Georgia this year, won the 2022 championship and has made it to match play in all five years she has played in this event.
Guleserian has had an excellent summer, earning co-medalist honors at the Mass Girls’ Junior Amateur and competing in the championship match. She has made match play each of the past two years, making a run to the semifinals last year thanks in part to an ace in her quarterfinal match.
A Longmeadow native, Dai is among the Western Mass delegation in the field. Dai qualified for match play last week in the Girls’ Junior Amateur Championship, following top 10 finishes earlier this year in the Connecticut Women’s Amateur (6th) and Connecticut Girls’ Junior Amateur (4th). Dai’s lone Mass Golf victory came in the 2021 Mass Girls’ Junior Amateur.
Sand is not exactly the first thing you think of when the Berkshires are the subject of discussion. Here at Taconic, however, it’s a matter of if and not when players will be hitting out of one of Taconic’s several sand traps. Taconic alone is notorious for a massive bunker between holes 8 and 11 that measures 100 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 5 feet deep. The bunker was part of the current Wayne Stiles plans in the 1920s, but the bunker only took its current shape once an excavator was used to remove a large boulder during a restoration project by Gil Hanse’s team in 2009. Another example, is the par-3 14th, which has six bunkers protecting the green in the front and both sides, and you certainly don’t want to be long.
However, the main concern for many will be the imposing fairway bunkers that not only impose the need for distance control but act as a guide for where best to place the ball to attack Taconic’s heavily sloped greens. The par-4 7th, for example, works left to right centerline bunker resting about 240 yards from the tee, in range for many of these players and guarding the best spot to attack the green on the uphill approach. On the next hole, which overlooks the Williams College campus blending into the horizon, you can see a heart-shaped bunker come into view up the right side. There may not be much love for these bunkers, but it’s their presence that keeps players honest and takes heed to the course’s Latin motto: “Medio tutissimus ibis.” Translation: “You will go most safely by the middle course.”
At Taconic GC (Williamstown) there is a bunker that took over 80 years to build.
Originally imagined by Wayne Stiles in 1927, the massive bunker that sits between the 8th and 11th green, was never completed until 2009.
About the Bunker: https://t.co/1LYPTBmWbd pic.twitter.com/HJK7DiwC7w
— Mass Golf (@PlayMassGolf) March 6, 2023
For complete coverage of the 121st Massachusetts Women’s Amateur Championship, visit MassGolf.org or follow Mass Golf on Facebook, X, and Instagram at @PlayMassGolf and use the hashtag #MassWomensAm.
