Colorado will be represented at the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship after all.
While the presence of Colorado State University teammates Katrina Prendergast and Ellen Secor gave the Centennial State some local flavor at the team event that starts on Saturday, a couple of Colorado residents recently learned they’ll be competing as well.
Hailey Schalk of Erie and Charlotte Hillary of Cherry Hills Village, who finished 1-2 last year in both the 3A Girls State High School tournament and the girls division of the AJGA Hale Irwin Colorado Junior, made it into the 64-team national Four-Ball field after originally being the first alternate from last October’s qualifying tournament at Walnut Creek Golf Preserve in Westminster. There, Prendergast and Secor were medalists with a four-ball score of 66, while Schalk and Erie carded a 68 for the first alternate spot.
Now both local teams will be in the field for the national championship, set for El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, Calif.
Schalk and Hillary (pictured, with Schalk in black) will be the first pair of Colorado residents to compete at the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball since 2015, when another set of then-Colorado high schoolers qualified — Jennifer Kupcho and Gillian Vance, who advanced to the match play round of 32. Tiffany Maurycy of Denver competed in the 2016 national Women’s Four-Ball, but her partner was from out of state, Amy Ellertson of Charlottesville, Va. Aili Bundy and Lauren Lehigh of Loveland High School qualified for the 2016 national championship, but didn’t compete because the national event conflicted with the state high school tournament.
At this year’s championship, 64 teams will play two rounds of stroke play Saturday and Sunday, with the top 32 finishers advancing to match play.
Schalk and Hillary are now both high school sophomores, Schalk at Holy Family and Hillary at Kent Denver. Schalk won two Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado majors in 2017 to go with her victories in the AJGA Irwin and the 3A state meet, and she earned JGAC Girls Player of the Year honors.
Hillary, winner of the JGAC Tour Championship in 2016, qualified for the U.S. Girls’ Junior last year and represented Colorado in the Girls Junior America’s Cup — along with Schalk, Jaclyn Murray and Lehigh. Earlier this month, Hillary finished second — after a playoff — at the AJGA Tathata Golf Junior All-Star Championship in Arizona. And she placed fifth in another AJGA event.
As for Prendergast and Secor, they made it to the match play round of 16 in last year’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball. Last week, they finished third and fourth, respectively, in the Mountain West Conference Championship.
