78th VSGA Women's State Team Matches

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Dates: Monday, August 26 - Wednesday, August 28

Format: One round of stroke-play qualifying on Monday. The top four teams will advance to the championship flight, while all remaining teams will be flighted into consolation brackets. The semifinals in each bracket will be played Tuesday, with the final matches in each bracket scheduled for Wednesday. Each team consists of six players split into three two-player sides. In match play, one point is available per hole, and each match is played to completion. The points from each of the three matches are then added up to determine the final score. Example: Team 1's A side wins 12-6 against Team 2's A side; Team 2's B side wins 9.5-8.5 against Team 1's B side; Team 1's C side ties Team 2's C side 9-9. The result is Team 1 wins 29.5-24.5.

Host site: Belmont Country Club (Ashburn)

Day 3: Mount Vernon tops Army Navy for first title since 2018

(Kim Palko and Linda DiVall scored 25 points over two days in Mount Vernon's title-winning effort. Credit: Chris Lang/VSGA)

Photo gallery

By Chris Lang

ASHBURN -- The women at Mount Vernon Country Club take great pride in their performance in the Virginia State Golf Association's annual State Team Matches. So they were well aware that it had been a hot minute since the club had hoisted the winner's trophy.

"Felt like more than 40 days and nights in the desert," MVCC's Linda DiVall said with a laugh of the club's six-year title drought in the event.

That dry spell ended on a scorching late August Wednesday afternoon at Belmont Country Club as Mount Vernon posted a 29.5-24.5 victory over Army Navy Country Club to win the 78th VSGA Women's State Team Matches. It was Mount Vernon's 15th win in the event and stopped a back-and-forth over the last five years between The Country Club of Virginia and Bide-A-Wee Golf Course.

Mount Vernon is now tied for second with Army Navy with 15 titles, one behind CCV. 

"We just have such great team spirit and camaraderie," DiVall said. "This means a lot. (CCV) is still one ahead of us, so we have something to gun for next year."

Mount Vernon rode a huge showing from Kim Palko and DiVall to victory. In the semifinal win over CCV on Tuesday, the pair recorded a 13.5-4.5 win. On Wednesday, it posted an 11.5-6.5 win over Judi Enright and Emily Van den Berg, the decisive blow in Mount Vernon's five-point win.

"I think we've just come to the realization that we need to play our own games, because we're very different in our approaches," DiVall said of her partnership with Palko. "We know each other's game well enough that we can help each other. We tell each other, play your own shot and commit to the shot. Kim just played extremely well yesterday and again today in this heat. It was a joy to watch."

Joan Gardner and Diane Willkens rallied for a 9.5-8.5 win over Shelley Savage and Andi Enright in another match. Army Navy claimed the final match, with Katelynn Waclawski and Danielle Hetzler nipping Shawn McCullough and Sarah Alvarez 9.5-8.5.

Alvarez earned the honor of captaining the Mount Vernon squad via her victory in the club's women's championship. She made no adjustments to the lineup from Tuesday's semifinal victory, and that strategy paid off on Wednesday. In particular, keeping DiVall and Palko together was a winning move, as they combined for 25 points over the two days of match play.

"Army Navy played great today," Palko said. "Clearly it was a close match, so it was a lot of fun today."

NOTABLE

• Next year's event will be played at Hermitage Country Club in Manakin Sabot.
• Meadowbrook CC's Karla Knight and Lisa Karl scored a 12.5-5.5 victory in the third flight, the most decisive match during a day of close matches on Wednesday. Five matches overall finished tied and five finished within a point.
• Winners emerged in five non-championship flights on Wednesday as well:
   
  • First flight: The Golf Club at the Highlands (Chesterfield) 28.5, Hermitage Country Club (Manakin Sabot) 25.5
  • Second flight: The Piedmont Club (Haymarket) 29.5, Willow Oaks Country Club (Richmond) 24.5
  • Third flight: Meadowbrook Country Club (Richmond) 29, Greenbrier Country Club (Chesapeake) 25
  • Fourth flight: Twin Lakes Golf Course (Clifton) 29, Indian Creek Yacht & Country Club (Kilmarnock) 24.5
  • Fifth flight: Belmont Country Club (Ashburn) 28, Ivy Hill Golf Club (Forest) 26

Day 2: Mount Vernon, Army Navy advance to final match

(Mount Vernon CC's Linda DiVall and Kimberly Palko rolled to a 13.5-4.5 victory on Tuesday. Credit: Chris Lang/VSGA)

Photo gallery

By Chris Lang

ASHBURN -- The final match in the championship flight of the 78th Virginia State Golf Association Women's State Team Matches at Belmont Country Club features the old guard going against the new guard. Army Navy Country Club ranks second in event history with 15 championships, but its last victory came in 1996. Captain Shelley Savage said she couldn't remember the last time the club even reached the championship flight. Mount Vernon Country Club ranks third in event history with 14 titles, with all but five coming in the 21st century.

In Tuesday's semifinals, Mount Vernon routed rival The Country Club of Virginia 35-19, led by a 13.5-4.5 win from 'C' team Linda DiVall and Kimberly Palko over CCV's Liza Lewis and Molly Meem. Army Navy squeaked by Spotswood Country Club despite losing two of the three matches in its semifinal matchup. But Katelynn Waclawski and Danielle Hetzler helped ANCC overcome a pair of one-point defeats in the other matches by beating Spotswood's Katie Cox and Georgia McCarthy 10.5-7.5 to secure a 27.5-26.5 win.

The championship match is slated as part of a 9 a.m. shotgun start on Wednesday. Final matches in five non-championship flights will also be contested as part of that shotgun.

NOTABLE

• Clubs were slotted into match-play brackets after one round of stroke-play qualifying, which concluded early Tuesday because darkness fell as two groups remained on the course on Monday. Mount Vernon was the stroke-play medalist in convincing fashion, finishing at 1-over, eight shots better than No. 2 seed Spotswood. Army Navy finished at 10 over and was the No. 3 seed.
• Mount Vernon has been stuck on 14 wins in the event since 2018. Since then, CCV won three times and Bide-A-Wee Golf Club (which did not field a team this year) won twice.
• Each of Mount Vernon's sides scored at least 10 points on Tuesday. (See the format description above for the scoring format for this event.) Shawn McCullough and captain Sarah Alvarez won 11.5-6.5 over CCV's Brenda Baril and Anne Silverstein; and Diane Willkens and Joan Gardner won 10-8 over CCV's Boodie McGurn and Lindsay Wortham.
• Spotswood's sides of Janet Wigglesworth/Pam Amoss and Murph Williams/Gretchen Collins each won their matches 9.5-8.5.
• Army Navy made much of its hay between 1968 and 1987, winning 13 of its 15 titles during that span, adding wins in 1994 and 1996 to get to 15 wins. Mount Vernon can match that total with a win Wednesday, leaving the Alexandria club one behind record holder CCV, which won its 16th title in 2022.
• Please visit the scoring link above for results from non-championship flight play on Tuesday.

QUOTABLE

• "I was super impressed by Linda and Kim today. We just go out there and we play our game, fairways and greens, one shot at a time. You just want to make sure you play your own game and don't worry about the team that's on the other side." -- Mount Vernon captain Sarah Alvarez
• "Yesterday, I'd say I was playing better and Shawn (McCullough) was there in a supportive role, you know, there for the pars so I could be free to go for birdie. So that really helped. Today, it the opposite. Shawn played great. She was steady. She was strong." -- Alvarez
• "I'm excited. I want to win. I've been on the team now four about four years now, and we've yet to win since then. So it would be nice to win." -- Alvarez
• "We have four people who have not played in this before. The only ones are myself and Judi Enright. So we've got some newbies. I think it's great that we won today, and even made the championship flights. None of us really expected it. But we're happy to be there and have the opportunity." -- Army Navy captain Shelley Savage
• "I think we've got two people who really have some distance -- Katelynn (Waclawski) and Emily (Van den Berg). Emily was playing was playing with Judi, who is a fabulous putter. We were lucky to squeak by, really. Everybody was just grinding away and wanting to get to the final." -- Savage
• "We're going against a super, super strong team. I just told them that every bracket is super strong. So just do your best." -- Savage