Logan Country Club is proud to host the 113th Utah Women's State Amateur at a venue that head professional Dean Johansen describes as “the best match-play course in the state.”
One of the best match-play golfers in Utah history will be absent, though. Four-time champion Kelsey Chugg is playing in next week’s U.S. Women’s Amateur in Mississippi, and missing two weeks of work in her new position as Salt Lake City Golf’s assistant director would be difficult.
So the 2017 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion (and 2018 runner-up) won’t be in the 45-player field for the tournament that starts Monday at the course where she won her first State Am title in 2012. Defending champion Tess Blair is not entered; in fact, no former winner is competing.
The list of favorites includes BYU golfer Naomi Soifua, who lost to Chugg in the 2012 final match at age 13, and 15-year-old Grace Summerhays, who reached match play in this month’s State Amateur at Soldier Hollow Golf Course in Midway. Summerhays then won two matches in the U.S. Girls’ Junior in Wisconsin last week, before losing to the eventual champion.
Other contenders are Southern Utah University golfer Poy Prasurtwong of Thailand and the top five finishers from the recent Utah Women’s Stroke Play tournament at Soldier Hollow. Idaho State golfer Tyler Erickson won the 36-hole event by one stroke over recent Bingham High School graduate Carissa Graft and former Lone Peak golfer Kerstin Fotu, with BYU’s Anna Kennedy and Utah Valley University’s Bailey Henley tying for fourth.
The Women's Am is important to the club's administrators, with course superintendent Paul Stokes having explored “ways to get Logan Country Club back on the map,” he said. In addition to the 2012 Women's Am, the club has hosted the 1977 and '95 State Amateurs.
Johansen's endorsement of the course as a great match-play venue revolves around the strategy of playing some short par-4s with risk/reward options and a tricky stretch of holes (Nos. 14-16) on the east bench of the property that will help determine the outcome of matches.
Two days of stroke play will reduce the field to 16 for match play, scheduled Wednesday and Thursday. The tournament format reverted to match play in 2010 after nearly 50 years as a stroke-play event.
