Age Advances at Mid-Amateur

T

he final match between 29-year-old champion Meghan Bolger and 44-year-old runner-up Kerry Postillionat at the 2007 U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur Thursday bucks the youth trend in recent years at USGA amateur tournaments, which could be mistaken for junior events.

Not so at the Mid-Am, where working women who are well out of college are the norm. That's because when the USGA created the Mid-Am in 1989, one of 10 USGA Championships designed exclusively for amateur golfers, it restricted the field to women aged 25 or older who have a USGA Handicap Index below 9.5. The average age of the contestants in this year's field was 43 (25-year-old Lynette Duran was the youngest and 68-year-old Salley Wessels was the oldest). Compare that to the 2007 U.S. Women's Amateur field, where the average age was 20 and a quarter of the second round matches featured high school golfers going head to head.

Legendary Carol Semple Thomson, 58, of Sewickley, Penn., who made it to the first round of match play this year before losing to Laura Ladden, 31, of Coatesville, Penn., thinks the Mid-Am is the perfect national championship for older players who are serious low handicappers. "Many 30, 35 and 40 year olds feel out of their element trying to go to the Women's Amateur, which has lots of young players who hit it a mile. It's a much more intense event," says Semple Thompson, the only woman who has qualified for match play in every Mid-Am since its inception in 1989. "There are some very good players here, but there are also people who are here to experience a USGA Championship. It's just a thrill for them."

One of those women playing a national USGA Championship for the first time was Hilary Howard, 30, of Pacific Grove, California. Howard, a member of the Duke women's national championship basketball team (1995-99), is the Director of Communications for the Northern California Golf Association. She holds a 3.3 Handicap Index and made her first appearance in a USGA event this week at the Mid-Am.

"It's always been a goal of mine to play in an USGA Championship," said Howard. "I enjoyed the challenge and opportunity to test my game at a very high level."

Although Howard was disappointed she didn't play well enough to qualify for match play (she shot 88-86 to miss the cut by eight strokes), she'd recommend the experience of competing on a national level.

"I would definitely encourage women to compete in the Mid-Am," said Howard. "The championship is very well run—each group had a walking rules official and a scorer. The attention to detail and professionalism of the event was very impressive and made it thrilling to be inside the ropes."

The USGA's age restriction in the Mid-Am also means that most of the competitors aren't aspiring Tour players. Whereas in the Women's Amateur, where much of the field is comprised of young collegiate players who dream of becoming the number one female golfer in the world, many of the women playing in the Mid-Am currently have careers or other outside obligations: Kim Eaton, 48, of Greely, Colorado, is a retired police officer; Jill Hardy, 26, of Canada, is a pharmacist for cancer care in Monitoba; Karla Kalian, 39, of Brush Prairie, Washington, is a high school math teacher; Sue O'Connor, 50, of Lake Bluff, Illinois, is a golf club maker for Performance Fit Golf in Northbrook, Illinois; Heidi Stark, 33, of Lincoln, Nebraska, is a pediatric dentist; Renee Theiler-Reichle, 46, of Fallbrook, California, is a driver for UPS; and Susan West, 43, was a USTA national champion in doubles.

"These women at the Mid-Am have other lives," says Semple Thompson. "They're doctors, they're lawyers, they're mothers, they're accountants and they're doing other things. They also happen to be very talented golfers and a national championship is a marvelous way to meet other people and test your skills."

The 2008 Mid-Am will be held at Barton Hills Country Club in Ann Arbor, Michigan from September 6-11.