Scoring [icon name="external-link" class="" unprefixed_class=""] | Preview [icon name="file-pdf-o" class="" unprefixed_class=""]
By Arthur Utley
WILLIAMSBURG — For the three years the VSGA Women’s Four-Ball Championship has been played, the partnership of Amy Ellertson (Farmington Country Club) and Natalie Easterly (CC of Virginia) has never not been the leader after a round in the Senior Division.
The championship was a one-day, 18-hole event the first two years. This year it has been expanded to 36 holes.
Ellertson-Easterly won the title in 2016 and 2017, and Saturday on the Marsh Hawk course at Ford’s Colony, the side posted a bogey-free, 7-under-par 65 and leads by eight strokes after round one.
A familiar name is at the top of the Championship Division as well. Reigning VSGA Women’s Amateur champion Lauren Greenlief (International CC) and partner Shabril Derco hold a two-stroke lead after shooting a 7-under 65.
Greenlief and Alexandra Austin captured the 4-Ball title at Meadowbrook Country Club last year, but Austin turned professional, and Greenlief needed a new partner. Derco (Cedar Point CC), who grew up playing at International CC and has known Greenlief a long time, competed in a number of VSGA events in the past under her maiden name of Shabril Brewer. She has just gotten her amateur status back.
The championship division played from tees that measured 6,023 yards; the seniors played from 5,461yards.
Trailing Ellertson and Easterly are last year’s runners-up and CCV mates Boodie McGurn and Lindsay Wortham. The pair carded a 1-over 73. Both spent this past week playing in the Richmond Women’s Golf Association Amateur. McGurn, 64, ended the grueling week with an equally grueling 1-up victory over 14-year-old Esther Choi in the final for her fifth title. Choi defeated Wortham in a semifinal.
In the shotgun start, Ellertson and Easterly began on the 10th hole and made the turn at 2-under after birdies at Nos. 14 and 17. They then birdied four holes in a row (Nos. 2-5) and added another birdie at the 8th for an incoming 31.
“We just played well today, for sure. It was a lot of fun,” said Ellertson, who recently qualified for this year’s U.S. Senior Women’s Open and provided seven of the eight birdies on Saturday. “I’m playing really well; clicking on all cylinders, but who knows how long that’s going to last.”
Their longest birdie putt came from 10 feet. Most were in the 5-foot range.
The greens on the Marsh Hawk course were converted to Bermuda grass last summer.
“What happened was we needed to get used to them on the front and understand that they just don’t break as much and as soon as I made that adjustment, started playing it in the hole, it was going in plus I was hitting it so close that it was easy,” Ellertson said. “You know how that goes. Every once in a while you get lucky.”
The side of Danielle Suh and Skylar Sload, both of whom are part of the VSGA Junior Circuit, are chasing Greenlief and Derco after shooting 5-under 67. Suh-Sload combined for eight birdies against three bogeys.
The start for Greenlief and Derco didn’t give any indication 65 was in the cards.
“We both bogeyed the first hole. We both bogeyed the second hole and after that we had a couple of really good par saves then it was fire at pins,” Greenlief said. “We were both in a lot of holes after that. It was really a day where you had to get one person in the hole and the second person could kind of hit the putt, kind of firm dead center and a lot of them found the cup."
They could have been 4-over after the fourth hole, but they birdied the 6th and 7th to get back to par by the turn. They then made seven birdies and two pars on the inward nine for a 29.
“We teamed up really well,” said Greenlief, who is happy the event is two days this year. “After we were bogey-bogey through two the first two holes, I was kind of happy it’s a two-day event. More time to get those birdies in and make up ground… I think it makes it feel more like a championship.”
There is a net division, too. Jan Carlson (Westpark CC) and Patti Anctil (Williamsburg National) posted a 12-under 60 and have a two-shot lead over Blue Hills GC teammates Debbie Young and Janet Cochrane and Kinderton CC members Anna Ingram and Karen Hagwood. Three teams are at 9-under 63.