Morrison Leads Hartford Women’s Open

Fires a course record tying 65 at Goodwin Park

By Bruce Berlet

HARTFORD, Conn. (August 22, 2020) – When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country, Camden Morrison decided to step away from golf for a month “to appreciate other things in life.”

“I was looking for a better balance,” said Morrison, a former standout at Franklin Pierce University and now a member of the maintenance crew at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Fla. “I went to the beach, did a lot of fishing, and when I came back, I focused better on my game. Now I’m a lot more relaxed, not just grinding, just golfing my ball, and today I golfed my ball.”

“Golfed her ball” indeed. Morrison shot a bogey-free, 5-under-par 65 Saturday that gave her a two-stroke lead over Jordan Lintz after the first round of the Hartford Women’s Open at Goodwin Park Golf Course. Morrison hit 15 greens in regulation on the way to her low score as a pro that tied the competitive women’s course record shot by Dani Mullin in the inaugural tournament in 2016.

Morrison, 24, carded seven 3s and 11 4s and could have been lower if she had converted any of three birdies putts of 10 feet or less over the last five holes.

“I normally putt better, but I still made some good ones,” Morrison said.

Morrison started quickly with a chip to 5 feet on the par-5 first hole for her first birdie. She nearly drove the green on the 315-yard sixth hole and then chipped to 3 feet for another birdie. After making the turn in 2-under 33, she hit a wedge to 8 feet for her third red number at the 10th hole. A two-putt birdie at the par-5 12th hole and a 15-foot putt at No. 13 got her to 5 under with five holes to play. She failed to better par down the stretch but wasn’t complaining after seeing her new outlook on life prove so beneficial.

Morrison, who also plays out of Ipswich (Mass.) Country Club, matched her competitive low in relation to par, a 5-under 67 when she finished second and her Franklin Pierce team won their second title in the 2018 Northeast 10 Conference Championship in her senior year. She won 14 collegiate tournaments and then set out to try to qualify for the LPGA Tour, made the 36-hole cut last August but admitted, “I wasn’t physically ready for that grind.”

So, Morrison got the maintenance job at TPC Sawgrass, the home of The Players Championship, which was canceled after the first round on March 12 because of the pandemic, the start of a three-month layoff for the PGA Tour. She also worked there with her teacher, Alana Swain.

“I wanted to learn more about grass,” Morrison said of applying for the maintenance position at one of the world’s best-known facilities. “I work at the course from 5:30 (a.m.) to 2 (p.m.) and then practice or work with Alana. And I have playing privileges at the course, which is nice.”

Lintz, 42, had four birdies, including a pair of deuces, and one three-putt bogey to stay close to Morrison. Lintz is a teaching pro who has owned Jordan Lintz Golf for five years while playing out of Oronoque Country Club in Stratford. She beat four-time champion Liz Janangelo Caron on the second playoff hole to win the 2011 Connecticut Women’s Open at Oxford Greens Golf Course but has played sparingly this year because of the pandemic and spending a lot of time on the teaching tee.

“As soon as things resumed May 20, I’ve been working four or five days a week giving eight to 10 lessons a day,” Lintz said. “And I haven’t had played a lot because a lot of tournaments have been canceled like the LPGA Teaching Division Championship and the Connecticut Women’s Open. I’m going to start taking a few days off each week to practice and play since I qualified for the KPGM Women’s PGA Championship that was postponed to Oct. 8-11 at Aronimink Country Club (in Newtown Square, Pa.)”

Lintz had a good warmup for that major championship on Saturday, making birdie putts of 8, 10 and 5 feet on the sixth, eighth and ninth holes to turn in 3-under 32. After the three-putt from 25 feet at the 11th hole, she hit a wedge to 5 feet for her second 2 at No. 15. A 10-foot par putt at the 18th hole had her feeling good heading into the final round Sunday at Keney Park Golf Course in Hartford.

“I’ve picked up some distance the last few years, so now I’m hitting a lot of wedges into the greens,” said Lintz, who played one year on the LPGA Tour and six years on the Futures Tour before starting her teaching career. “And I’m getting better with my distance control, so it would be nice to have some more tournaments to play in.”

Pam Kuong of Charles River Country Club in Newton, Mass., was low amateur and the only other player to break par. She birdied three of the first six holes on putts of 12, 5 and 6 feet, but those were her only sub-par numbers. She made the turn in 3-under 32 but bogeyed the 11th and 13th holes when her approach shots went long before changing her strategy and carding five pars down the stretch.

“I hit it close on the front nine, but the greens seemed to be firmer on the back and a few shots went bounding over,” Kuong said. “So, after the bogeys, I tried to play short of the greens and it worked out. … I like the golf courses, and I had a fun grouping with Sadie (Martinez), who has given back so much to the game with The First Tee of Connecticut, and Jennifer (Hantke, the niece of Connecticut Section PGA executive director Tom Hantke), who is playing in her first tournament. It’s always nice to have nice people to play with.”

Kuong, 59, a commercial lending officer at Bank of America in Boston, won the Massachusetts Women’s Amateur in 2008 and 2010 and the Massachusetts Senior Women’s Amateur in 2019 and 2020.

Amateur Angela Garvin of Feeding Hills, Mass., had two birdies and two bogeys to finish fourth at 70, one ahead of defending champion Amy Caligiore of Orlando, Fla., and amateurs Connie Dai (Longmeadow, Mass.) and Linda Wang (Fresh Meadows, N.Y.) Caligiore is the lone past champion and one of only eight pros in the 51-player field who will be shooting for a $2,000 first prize from a $5,000 purse.

Martinez, who lives in Hartford, shot 74 and is tied for eighth with fellow amateurs Dixi Han (Shrewbury, Mass.), Alexa Brown (Trumbull) and Lilly Rose Moreau of Wethersfield. Hantke shot 88 and tied for 42nd.

The final round starts at 8 a.m., and Morrison, Lintz and Kuong are in the final group at 10:50 a.m.