2023 Richmond Women's City Amateur
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Iron Play Could Determine the Winner in 2023 RWGA City Amateur at Lakeside Park
By VIC DORR JR.
An intriguing golf course will play host to an intriguing field when the Richmond Women’s Golf Association presents its 95th City Amateur Championship tournament beginning Monday at the Lakeside Park Club.
Competition will begin Monday with 18 holes of stroke-play qualifying. The format will shift thereafter to match play.
Rohrbaugh will exercise her champion’s prerogative and skip the qualifying round. She will be seeded first in the 16-member championship flight when match play begins on Tuesday. Monday’s low scorer will be seeded second.
Click here for MONDAY’S SCHEDULE - Pairings and Tee Times At Lakeside Park Club.
Boodie McGurn
Winner 1995, 1999,
2003, 2004, 2018
Maggie Balch
Winner 1992, 1997, 2005
Peggy Freeman
Winner 1988, 1989,1991
Nevia Cashwell
Winner 2019
Joanne Kitusky
Winner 2012
Sunday, June 4, 2023
Seventy-seven players, including two-time defending champion Kristine Rohrbaugh and five other former winners, will challenge Lakeside Park’s relatively short but sinister layout. The 102-year-old course, designed by legendary architect Donald Ross, places an emphasis on iron play and deft short-range shotmaking. Results from the recent Lakeside Invitational men’s tournament offer a warning: Only two of 48 players posted subpar scores.
The 5,130-yard, par-71 layout “looks great,” said Lakeside Park PGA professional Jeff Crabbe said. The course has been refined -- for the better, he believes – since Joanne Kitusky won there in 2012. Crabbe said a bunker and green renovation undertaken a decade ago “brought the course back to what Ross intended…back to the way he would have wanted it to play.”
Said Crabbe: “You don’t need to be overly long” off the tee at Lakeside Park. “But you need to be precise with your subsequent shots.” Lakeside, Crabbe said, “tends to be more of a second-shot golf course. It rewards good iron play.”
No argument there. Lakeside Park’s greens – Crabbe describes them as “turtleback” greens -- are small and subtly crowned. The sides tend to slope gently downward from a central high point. Thus, approach shots that aren’t properly placed are likely to be repelled. “You’re probably going to miss some greens,” Crabbe said. “Your short game – in particular, your ability to get up and down – will be important.”
Rohrbaugh, who last played the Lakeside Park course in 2019, understands. Recent VSGA events have sharpened her rhythm and competitive instincts. She said she focused last week’s preparation upon iron play in general and the use of her wedge in particular. “You know you’re going to need your wedge at Lakeside,” she said. Rohrbaugh, a 33-year-old from Stonehenge Country Club, is stalking her fourth City Amateur title overall and her third in as many years. She defeated Liza Lewis, a powerful 27-year-old from the Country Club of Virginia, on the first hole of sudden death in last year’s match-play final at Salisbury Country Club. So capable are the two that a rematch seems possible, and perhaps likely, in Friday’s championship flight final.
Memories of the 2022 tournament will accompany Rohrbaugh throughout this year’s event. “I have so many good experiences to draw from,” she said. “I’ll admit: When they were happening, some of those experiences were stressful. I tended to drag things out last year – sometimes to the very end. If it happens again this year, I’ll be able to think back on the good things I did and the good shots I hit” to transform self-inflicted pressure into triumph. Such recollections, she said, are accompanied by the knowledge that “if I relax and stay patient and just let things happen, I’ll be fine.”
Other former champions in the field: Boodie McGurn (five championships, the most recent in 2018), Maggie Balch and Peggy Freeman (three apiece) and Kitusky and Nevia Cashwell (one apiece).