Defending champ Sipe headlines area players in Ohio Amateur field

Defending champion Austin Sipe of Centerville leads a group of 18 Miami Valley players who will be in the field this week for the 72-hole Ohio Amateur Championship, beginning Tuesday at Wedgewood Golf & Country Club in Powell.

Sipe, who won the 2017 Amateur at Springfield Country Club, is automatically qualified for the 2018 event as are others who finished in the top 20 last year. They are: Luke Wells (T4) and Clark Engle (11th) of Springfield, Jeff Scohy (T12) of Bellbrook and Ryan Wenzler (T18) of Dayton.

»RELATED: Sipe wins Ohio Amateur

The others qualified on May 29 at Miami Valley Golf Club where Pete Samborsky of Dayton shared the medalist honor with Austin Schoonmaker of Maineville and Garrett Wood of Clarksville. The trio turned in 4-under-par 67s.

The other 13 area qualifiers were: Ryan Flick of Dayton, City match play champion Cameron Luczka of Kettering, Tyler Goecke of Xenia, Jon Cloyd of Springboro, Holden Scribner of Troy, Brandon Weiss of Vandalia, Philip Miller of Centerville, William McDavid of Urbana, Conner Quigley of Dayton, Dhaivat Pandya of Centerville, Kyle Blaser of Springfield and Cooper Jones of Centerville.

Minster native Ben Hogenkamp, who now lists his residence as New Albany, also qualified.

Women’s Amateur qualifier at ‘Grove

A U.S. Women’s Amateur qualifying round will be held on Thursday at Walnut Grove Country Club.

Seventy-six players will vie for six spots in the Women’s Am Aug. 6-12 at The Golf Club of Tennessee at Kingston Springs, 19 miles from Nashville.

One of last year’s qualifiers at Walnut Grove was Sophia Schubert of Oak Ridge, Tenn., who won the 2018 Women’s Am at San Diego Country Club.

Two others who made it to San Diego last year are back in the Walnut Grove field. They are: Lauren Hartlage of Elizabethtown, K.Y., and Leila Raines of Columbus.

Entrants from the Miami Valley include: Ellie Cronin (UD), Amanda Hayes (Ohio U) and Rhine Morland of Dayton, Alyssa Burritt (UC) of Bellbrook, Emily Knouff (Ball State) of Fort Loramie and Madison Wolters (Wittenberg) of Centerville.

Burritt, winner of the Miami Valley Women’s Metropolitan Championship last summer, had the best scoring average (76.9) on the University of Cincinnati team for the 2017-18 school year. A math major, she also had a 3.814 grade point average which earned an All-American Scholar salute from the Women’s Golf Coaches Association (WGCA).

Miami Shores will remodel clubhouse

While visiting Miami Shores Golf Course in Troy recently, I saw the plans for a major remodeling of the clubhouse and construction of a driving range near the entrance road. Work on the driving range is already under way.

Golfers have been asked to remove their golf equipment from the storage area by Sept. 1 when the clubhouse project will begin.

A new roof will be placed over the entire building and the interior will undergo major alteration. For instance, the pro shop will be moved from one end of the building to the other, placing it near the front entrance.

Chip Shots

The Dayton Senior Men’s Match Play Championship begins Thursday at Community Golf Club with an 18-hole stroke play qualifying round that will determine the seeding after defending champion Robert Rose automatically gets the No. 1 seed. Match play ends on Sunday.

After a one-year absence, the Dayton District Women’s Golf Association Match Play Championship is back on the schedule. It will be held July 17-20 at Beavercreek Golf Club.

A stroke play round on July 17 will be followed by three days of match play. A consolation bracket guarantees each participant three rounds.

The tournament had been played annually from 1975 to 2016. Its predecessor, the Dayton Women’s Golf Association Championship (for private club members), was held from 1933 to 1977.

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