AVON, August 15 – Five local golfers will be competing in the Connecticut Women’s Open golf championship on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Golf Club of Avon. Seventy-two of the top amateur and professional golfers in the region will be playing in the tournament, which is being hosted by the Golf Club of Avon for the first time in its 17-year history.
Past winners include former LPGA pro Liz Caron and Suzy Whaley, a PGA and LPGA pro who was the first woman in 58 years to qualify for a PGA Tour event when she qualified to play in the 2003 Greater Hartford Open.
Avon’s Donna Harris, Marissa Grillo and Autumn Serruta are scheduled to play along with Canton’s Nikki Liucci and Burlington’s Nicole Elliott. There is no admission fee and spectators are invited to attend the two-day event.
Grillo, who will be a sophomore at Boston College this fall, is looking to become the first player to win on their home course since Caron in 2005. Harris is no stranger to the Golf Club of Avon, either. The long-time coach at the University of Hartford won 10 club championships in span of 12 years at the Golf Club of Avon. Harris coached 12 years with the Hawks before retiring September 2014.
Liucci will be playing in the Connecticut Open for the third time. Her best round came last year with an 85 in the first round.
It looks to be challenging field, including 21 professionals.
Three previous champions are entered. Megan Khang of Rockland, Mass., the 2012 and 2013 Connecticut Open champion, Milford’s Jordan Lintz, who won in 2011 in a playoff, and East Lyme’s Lynn Valentine, who won in 2008, are registered to play.
Khang was the youngest player to win the title at age 14 in 2012. Currently the No. 3 junior in the country according to Golfweek, Khang recently qualified for her third U.S. Open earlier this year. She went on to shoot rounds of 71-70-73-71—285 to finish in a tie for 35th place, good enough for low amateur honors.
Lintz, currently a teaching pro at Oronoque Country Club in Stratford, is looking to become just the fourth player in tournament history to win more than one Open championship.
Valentine has finished inside the top 10 in four of the last five years at the Connecticut Open. She has also competed in numerous events on the national level, including the 2008 U.S. Open.
Ashlan Ramsey of Greenville, S.C., was the top ranked amateur in the world from August 2013 through June 2014 and competed in the 2014 U.S. Curtis Cup team. Now a professional, she is competing on the LPGA Symetra Tour.
Catherine McEvoy, who will be a senior at Greenwich High this fall, won the 50th annual Connecticut Women’s Amateur title last week at Indian Hill Country Club in Newington. She nipped Branford’s Jen Holland by a single stroke. Holland will also be competing in the Connecticut Open.
Bloomfield’s Nathalie Filler, who recently won the New England Women’s Golf title, will compete. She will be a senior at the University of Delaware this fall. Her sister, Maisie, 14, will also be competing in the event.
The top two finishers from a year ago — four-time champion Liz Caron and Carmen Bandea of Georgia — will not be participating.
It was a chilly afternoon in May 2014 that saw temperatures in the low 40s at the Wampanoag Country Club in West Hartford, when Caron and Bandea traded blows throughout much of the back nine on day two, combining for seven birdies in a remarkable four-hole stretch that left the rest of the field in the rear-view mirror.
However, the players struggled to reach the clubhouse. Bandea bogeyed 16 and 17, and Caron bogeyed 18. That left them tied at 142, 2-under par, and in the ensuing sudden death playoff that began with a return to the 18th tee, both halved with bogeys and then halved the second playoff hole (the par 4 10th) with pars.
It ended on the third playoff hole, the par 4, 17th. Bandea’s perfectly struck nine iron came to rest ten feet from the hole. With Caron unable to match the play, Bandea rolled in her birdie to win the championship.
It’s the first time that the Golf Club of Avon is hosting the women’s Connecticut Open tournament. But the 27-hole course has hosted eight Connecticut Section Golf Association (CSGA) major championships in the past. The Golf Club of Avon hosted the Connecticut Open in 1957, 1967, 1978 and 2001. They also hosted the Connecticut Senior Amateur in 1965, 1976, 1991 and 2012.
Since 2009, the Collinsville Press has been providing award-winning coverage of sports and news in the Farmington Valley and across Connecticut.


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