quarterfinal

Coble, Grimes, Leach, Stasi Reach Semifinals

Ocala, Fla. – Matches that appeared to be runaways turned into nail-biters in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur. Two former champions, Meghan Bolger Stasi and Virginia Derby Grimes, advanced to the semifinals along with veteran campaigners Martha Leach and Laura Coble.


Mina Hardin dropped a tough match in 19 holes against Virginia Derby Grimes on Wednesday. (Steven Gibbons/USGA)

Grimes, 45, of Meridian, Miss., winner in 1998, never led until the 17th hole in her encounter with Mina Hardin, 49, of Fort Worth, Texas. Grimes finally settled the matter on the 19th hole.

For Grimes, it was a stirring comeback. Hardin birdied three of the first seven holes to go 3 up, but after a few exchanges, at the 13th Grimes began a barrage of five birdied in the next six holes and was 1 up after the 17th.

Grimes drove into the trees on the left side of the par-4 18th hole, while Hardin was safely on the fairway and then on the green. Hardin’s par to Grimes’ bogey squared the match.

Hardin’s birdie putt at the 19th hung on the lip. “I walked to the hole very slowly, thinking it would fall in,” Hardin said, “and Virginia was saying, ‘That’s good, that’s good.’ It didn’t fall.”

Grimes made her birdie putt at the 19th to win, 1 up.

“She caught on fire on the back nine,” Hardin said of Grimes, “and I made one mistake, one bad shot.”

Hardin was referring to the 13th hole where she pulled her tee shot, hit a tree, and made a double bogey. Grimes had a conceded birdie and Hardin’s lead shrank from a comfortable 3-hole margin to a testy 2 up. Grimes got back to within one hole with a birdie at the 15th and squared the match at the 16th with another birdie. Grimes was even par on the card.

Stasi, 31, and Wendi Patterson Golden, 34, of Sarasota, Fla., met in an all-Florida encounter but played indifferent golf. With the usual match-play concessions, Golden was five over par for the 16 holes of the match and Stasi was one over par.

Stasi was 3 up after six holes, but her lead shrunk to 1 up at the eighth hole on Golden’s second birdie of the day. Stasi won the 13th and 14th with pars, then closed out the match, 4 and 3, when she birdied the 15th.

Leach, 47, played 2-under-par golf through seven holes and jumped into a 6-up lead over Dawn Woodard, 35, of Greer, S.C., but it wouldn’t last.

“Starting out, my tempo was really off,” Woodard said, “and she was playing very well. I knew there was a lot of golf to play on the back nine.”

Woodard chopped away at the deficit. By the time she marched off the 14th green with a birdie, she had picked up five holes and was only one down. But at the 16th, she missed a 4-foot birdie putt that would have squared the match. It ended on the 18th green with Leach winning, 1 up.

Laura Coble, 45, of Augusta, Ga., made it an all-Southern semifinal when she defeated Christy Schultz, 29, of Rochester, N.Y., 3 and 1. Coble had only one birdie on the day but wrapped up the match, 3 and 1, with a par on the 17th. Coble was two over par for the match.

All of the quarterfinalists earned exemptions into the 2010 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur and will not have to go through sectional qualifying to get into the field.

Said Schultz, the youngest of the quarterfinalists, “I never would have imagined I would get this far in the championship.”

When informed of her exemption for next year’s championship, Schultz said, “That’s good, because I’m having a baby in April.”

Story written by Rhonda Glenn, a USGA Manager of Communications. E-mail her with questions and comments at rglenn@usga.org.