STASI WINS JONES/DOHERTY TOURNAMENT FOR SECOND TIME AT AGE OF 39

Megan Stasi

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida - When former US Curtis Cup player Meghan Stasi (Oakland Park, Florida) won the Ione D. Jones/Doherty Women’s Amateur Championship in 2012, she became the tournament's oldest winner in the previous 8 years.

After winning the 86th playing of the tournament this past week, Stasi is now the oldest winner in the past 14 years. The 39-year-old four-time U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur champion defeated Alexa Pano (Lake Worth, Florida) 5 and 4 in the final match in cool, blustery conditions at Coral Ridge Country Club.

Pano was the rarest off all things in amateur golf: the 13-year-old defending champion. Pano went 22 holes in winning last year's final, and the year before made the semis at the age of 11. She reached the 2018 final after two straight one-hole match wins, first over mid-amateur Courtney McKim (Raleigh, North Carolina) and then over Lexi Harkins (Crystal Lake, Illinois), a senior at the University of Wisconsin.

Stasi had a little easier time through the bracket, until her semi-final. After a 5 and 3 win against fellow mid-am Shirley Vaughn (Canton, Ohio), Stasi took out up-and-coming Nigerian teenager Georgia Oboh 3 and 2. This set up a semi-final against 23-year-old Noelle Maertz (Clark, New Jersey). In a tightly contested match, Stasi hit the shot of the tournament, holing out with a 50-degree wedge shot from 112 yards range, to win the 17th and take a one-hole lead into the final hole before ultimately prevailing by two holes.

"I knew it was going to be close," Stasi told the Miami Herald about her shot which pitched short and rolled in. "I knew I needed to hit it 100 yards." The final match was not close as Stasi took control and closed it out at the 14th hole and became a two-time Jones/Doherty champion.

In the Senior Division, the final match was a carbon copy of the 2017 final. Lisa Schlesinger (Fort Myers, Florida) beat Terrill Samuel (Toronto, Canada) 2 and 1, the same margin by which Schlesinger defeated Samuel in last year's championship final.
The Flight winners in the Senior Division were Tama Caldabaugh of Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida (First Flight), Liz Haines of Gladwyne, Pennsylvania (Second Flight), and Karin-Joyce Tion of Miami Beach, Florida (Third Flight).