Another Senior Moment For Shelly Stouffer As She Wins PNGA Title
BC's Shelly Stouffer Added Another Title To Her Resume At The PNGA Senior Women's Championship - Image Courtesy PNGA/Twitter
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
Shelly Stouffer keeps crossing senior women’s golf titles off her list. A week after winning her third straight B.C. title, the reigning Canadian Senior Women’s champion from Nanoose Bay won the PNGA Senior Women’s Championship at the Suncadia resort east of Seattle.
Stouffer won the 54-hole event by eight shots, finishing the tournament in style by eagling the 18th hole at Suncadia’s Prospector Course.
“I just played pretty steady today,” said Stouffer, who closed with a one-over 73 to finish the event at eight-over par. Stouffer’s eagle came after she stuck her second shot, a seven-iron from 162 yards, to within three feet of the hole and made the putt. “It was a great way to finish,” she said.
Stouffer started the final round with a four-shot lead and had doubled it by the time her day was done. “It was a stress-free day,” she said.
Loree McKay of Portland finished second. Jackie Little of Procter, B.C. was another three shots back in third place. The first round of the tournament was played on Suncadia’s Rope Rider course, while the final two rounds were played on the Prospector course.
Stouffer’s margin of victory would have been even larger if not for the par 3 15th hole at Prospector. She double-bogeyed the hole both days. “Yesterday, I four-putted it and today there wasn’t much sand in the bunker and I hit it out and three-putted, so that wasn’t any good,” she said.
Stouffer heads to Calgary next week for the Glencoe Invitational. There’s no senior category there, so the 52-year-old Stouffer won’t be a young senior in Calgary, but rather an older amateur. “That should be fun,” she said. “There will be a lot of younger people there.”
Stouffer is gearing up for three big events this summer. She plays in the U.S. Senior Amateur, where she made it all the way to the semi-finals last summer, in Anchorage, Ala. in late July.
She is also exempt for the U.S. Senior Women’s Open, which goes Aug. 22-25 in Dayton, Ohio. And she’ll defend her Canadian Senior Women’s title the following week in Headingly, Man.
Click HERE for complete scoring from the PNGA Senior/Super-Senior Women's Amateur.