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2022 RICHMOND WOMEN'S CITY AMATEUR

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Numbers game: RWGA City Amateur’s return to Salisbury attracts a full field

By VIC DORR JR.

The Richmond Women’s Golf Association will return to Salisbury Country Club in all-but-unprecedented numbers for the coming week’s 94th City Amateur Championship tournament.

Kristine Rohrbough

2021 Champion

A filled-to-capacity field that includes seven former winners will visit Salisbury for the first time in more than more than a decade. Tournament chair Cathy Plotkin said the 80-player turnout is “our largest in eons.” The field will be split into five 16-player flights following Monday’s 18-hole stroke-play qualifying round. Thereafter the format will shift to match play. Champions will be determined Friday morning.

Plotkin said the RWGA has experienced “explosive growth” in the past few years and has recently seen membership climb to the 200 level. Contributing significantly, she said, is an eligibility adjustment – Rule J – that allows players who do not belong to the 12 RWGA-affiliated local country clubs to nonetheless compete in RWGA events.

In essence, Plotkin said, Rule J permits women who are primarily public course players to compete if they meet performance standards. Plotkin said “there are 15 Rule J players, 60 RWGA members and 5 non RWGA members” in this year’s City Amateur entrants. This is the continuation of a happy trend. Participation in the RWGA’s spring schedule, Plotkin said, has been robust. She said each of the past three events has required a waiting list.

The selection of Salisbury as the 2022 venue also has contributed to the surge in participation. Plotkin said Salisbury’s par-72, 5,129-yard layout “is a wonderful facility, certainly one of the finer courses in Richmond, and people want very much to play there.”

The tournament will be played on the club’s par-36 Huguenot and Monacan nines. Salisbury director of golf Mike Hott said benign spring weather – warm a few weeks ago and recently damp – has decorated the hybrid Bermuda fairways in rich shades of green.

“The course looks good – really good – and it’s playing well,” Hott said. “I think (the women) are really going to enjoy it. I think they’re going to have fun.”

Well, perhaps. The Huguenot nine, Hott said, carries significant risk/reward possibilities. Water is abundant. Eight of the nine holes offer challenges that include hazards. The Monacan nine, Hott said, is “relatively straightforward. That’s where you can gain some separation. That’s where you can attack.”

Salisbury last played host to a women’s City Amateur in 2009. That was the year in which Lyberty Anderson, then 13, earned the first of her five city championships. Since then, Hott said, the course has matured. Much attention has been paid to detail and overall beautification.

The 2022 field will be led by defending champion Kristine Rohrbaugh, a former William and Mary player. Rohrbaugh, a two-time City Amateur champion, posted a 4-and-2 victory over five-time winner Boodie McGurn in last year’s Championship Flight final at the Country Club of Virginia.

As the defending champion, Rohrbaugh is not required to qualify. She will automatically be seeded first in the Championship Flight when the match play portion of the tournament begins on Tuesday. The qualifying medalist will be seeded second.

2021- Boodie congratulates Kristine

In addition to Rohrbaugh and McGurn, the field includes three-time champions Maggie Balch, Lindsay Wortham and Peggy Freeman; 2019 winner Nevia Cashwell and 2012 winner Joanne Kitusky. The 15 top performers in Monday’s qualifying round will join Rohrbaugh in the Championship Flight. Current player indices will be used to fill flights One through Four. Qualifying performance will determine each player’s position in her respective flight.