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Pictured: Linda DiVall
By Chris Lang
HOT SPRINGS — An all-Mount Vernon Country Club final is set in the 4th VSGA Super Senior Women’s Amateur Championship, and the two-time defending champion rolled to the semifinals on Wednesday in the 65th VSGA Senior Women’s Amateur Championship. The events are being held concurrently at the Omni Homestead Resort’s Old Course.
Mount Vernon’s Linda DiVall will square off against friend and fellow club member Shawn McCullough in the final of the Super Senior Women’s Amateur, with that match scheduled to begin at 11:30 on Thursday morning.
In the Senior Women’s Amateur, Andrea Miller’s quest for a third straight championship is well alive after she scored a second straight decisive victory to advance to Thursday’s semifinals.
THE STORY
4th VSGA Super Senior Women’s Amateur
DiVall and McCullough have met multiple times in Mount Vernon events, including in this year’s club championship, where DiVall ousted McCullough in the first round.
It’s safe to say each knows the other’s games well.
“Shawn is just very, very steady,” DiVall said. “She’s a good driver of the ball, and she’s a great competitor. I think we both fit into that category. It will be an interesting match. We’ll enjoy each other’s company and it’ll be fun.”
“It’s just going to be an incredible match,” McCullough said. “I’m thrilled. Linda, like Boodie, is an awesome golfer, an awesome competitor. I’m thrilled to be here.”
DiVall—who won the VSGA Super Senior Women’s Stroke Play Championship on her home course in June—has taken to the 65-and-over division pretty well in her maiden voyage this year.
“It’s fun playing with your peers,” DiVall said. “At some point in time, you realize can no longer compete with the 50-year-olds, so it becomes a really easy decision.”
She continued her strong play on Wednesday, ousting 2020 finalist Maggie Balch (Hermitage CC) 3 and 2. DiVall raced to an early lead and was 3-up through six holes, but Balch squared the match by the turn, winning the next three holes.
DiVall won No. 10 with a par, No. 12 with a birdie and No. 15 with a par before closing the match out with a two-putt par on the par-3 16th.
McCullough—who competed in last week’s U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur in Alaska—won an up-and-down match with Boodie McGurn (CCV), closing McGurn out with a spectacular approach from 74 yards out on the par-4 17th. She hit the shot to six inches just after McGurn had put her approach to three feet. She tapped in, and McGurn missed the birdie putt that would have extended the match, and McCullough won 2 and 1.
“I just wanted to put a good shot on it,” McCullough said. “It was downhill, so I used less club. I knew it was a two-thirds (swing), and I have a little cheat sheet from my two coaches—six things to go through. So I went through them, and then I just executed. It makes it easier when you’re not thinking, ‘Oh my God, I have to win this hole.’ I used to do that. I was always thinking about the future. So I didn’t. I just thought about that shot.”
65th VSGA Senior Women’s Amateur
Miller, who reached the round of 32 at last week’s U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, says she considers the Old Course almost like home, having reached a tremendous level of comfort on the venerable Donald Ross track. She’s looking to become just the third player to win three straight Senior Women’s Amateur titles.
Miller (The Club at Glenmore) said she’s simply in a groove right now, having played a ton of golf leading up to this event. She also noted that Anchorage Golf Course prepared her for what she would see in Hot Springs.
“The course was a really, really tight course,” said Miller, who knocked off Meadowbrook CC’s Lisa Cox 5 and 4. “It had bent-poa greens and bent fairways, so it required you to have consistent shotmaking. I really honed my targeting at that course, which certainly helps you out here.”
Miller next will meet Joan Gardner, another U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur qualifier who reached match play in Alaska. Gardner (Mount Vernon CC) made bogey on 18 to hold off CCV’s Brenda Baril 1 up. The first semifinal is scheduled to start at 8:14 a.m. Thursday, followed by the second at 8:21.
“Joan is a very consistent player, and she’s really good,” Miller said. “It will be a battle, to say the least. My mantra going into today was to play bogey-free golf, and it worked really well, so that’s kind of what I’ll take into tomorrow.”
The other semifinal will feature a pair of Kays.
Kay Stout (Indian Creek Y&CC) eliminated last year’s other finalist, Joanne Kitusky, 3 and 2 to advance. The match was tied after three holes but Stout won holes 4, 5 and 6 to take command of the match. Kitusky (The Dominion Club) never got any closer.
The fourth quarterfinal featured Kay Tyler defeating Mimi Hoffman 4 and 3 in a battle of Belle Haven CC members. The match was tight, with Tyler holding a 1-up edge through eight holes. She then won the next three holes to take control and closed the match out with a birdie on the par-5 15th.
NOTES
- The Senior Women’s Amateur is guaranteed to feature one first-time finalist, as Gardner, Tyler and Stout have never reached the championship match.
- Miller is looking to become the first stroke-play medalist since McGurn in 2015 to win the championship.
- DiVall has won three Senior Women’s Amateurs and will look to join Dot Bolling as players to have won both the Senior and Super Senior Women’s Am.
- Play was delayed for more than three hours on Wednesday due to inclement weather.
- The Senior Women’s and Super Senior Women’s Amateurs also feature several consolation flights. For results from those flights, please click the “Event home” link at the top of this release.
Lang is the VSGA’s manager of media and communications.