Esther Garcia is happy to accept her 2nd place award!

The 2025 Sacramento County Women’s Amateur Championship was contested at Mather Golf Course on July 26 and 27.  We had several members participating.  It was a CLOSE contest in the Net division between 3 of our members who secured 2, 4, and 5 place.  Congratulations to Esther Garcia who took home second place with a two day net total of 148.  Vicki Philpott barely missed 3^rd place in a card off but secured 4^th place with a two day net total of 150.  She edged out Pam Katros who took 5^th place with a two day net of 151.

 Below a group of participants are shown comparing post round excuses and congratulating the winners!

Marcia Whiting gets her FIRST Hole in One on July 23, 2025 at the Rancho Solano Golf Course in Fairfield, CA using a 7-iron on Hole 5 over a bunker at 115 yards.  

CONGRATULATIONS MARCIA!!!

I have been advised the weather was beautiful for the second event of the Capitol City Tour.  This was fourball match play at Empire Ranch.  I’m beyond sorry I missed out.  I was at the LPGA Amateurs Championship Open in Bloomington Indiana (working, not playing).  We endured two rain delays amidst thunder and lightning storms before managing to finish all 36 holes.

I’m happy to hear everyone on the tee sheet was present to play at Empire.  That is good news in a match play event.  Looks like good battles ensued on the course.  The outstanding score of the day belongs to Jody West with a net 66.  Wow.  Right behind that we had Marian Kubiak with a net 68 and Laurie Hochmuth with a net 69.  Eight golfers shot below net 72 and an additional nine were in the net 70’s.   This helps explain why the birdie juice flask was empty when I returned.  I anticipate some handicaps will be dropping….

Scoring Capital City Tour points at Empire Ranch as shown below:

6 points match win

5 points (net score of 72 or less)

4 points (net score of 73 to 79)

3 points match loss

Additional .1 for every net birdie.

Sorry I missed the fun but looking forward to the next CCT event at Bartley on August 9.   

The Capitol City Tour is off to a rip roarin’ start!  Our Chapter golfers are getting into the swing with some great matches and amazing scores.  We had 11 golfers score net par or better.  Another 9 golfers shot in the net 70’s.  That is some good golfing.  Low net of the day, 66, came from our very own Chapter President Karen Graser!   Your Education Director, Lori Lucius, came in with a low gross of 76.  And amazingly, she needed every one of those strokes to hold off her singles competitor Sunny Shimabukuro who took the match all the way to the final hole!

Thanks to all who came out for our first match play event.  It requires a slightly different mindset but a valuable experience for many future events.  It was a refresher for many of our players as well as a “first time” match play for some.  Thanks to everyone for flexibility with some last minute pairing shifts and maintaining a smile right thru to the large gathering post round at the 19^th hole! 

FYI…scoring for this round of the Capitol City Tour is shown below.  Player gets the best score from category, not cumulative.   (Leaderboard is under quick links)

6 points match win

5 points (net score of 72 or less)

4 points match tie or net score of 73-79

3 points match loss

.1 per net birdie (added to every score)

The wins keep stacking up for our very own Chapter Champion Karen Garcia! 

Stay tuned to cheer her on at the Senior Women’s Open August 21 – 24.  That is big stuff.  She qualified at Diablo Country Club last week by securing both low gross and low amateur over a very distinguished field of golfers.   She’s a star and we wish her the best of luck!

New champions at the 2025 Sacramento County Mixed!  Our very own, Stacey Baradit and her husband Elijah Jenkins won a close competition.  They combined for a sizzling net 61.5 to win the overall event and secure the trophy.  Stacey’s husband is relatively new to golf so I'm confident Stacey’s LPGA Amateurs experience with our Chapter was integral to winning!  Watch out for these two in the coming years.  They will only get tougher to beat! 

With a net score 66.5, our member Vicki Philpott and her husband Jim, secured second place in their flight.  They were a narrow .5 from first place.  So close!  They are a perennial tough team in the mixed competition.

Other members who competed include Cinnamon Danielson and Linda DeLong. 

If you have not played in the Sacramento Golf Council Mixed tournaments you are missing out.  The competition is close and format is super fun.   

Wow!  Whitney Oaks was the challenge we anticipated for the final Tower Bridge Tour event.   Our top Fourball duo of the day, with a net score of -6, was Maggie Raybourn and Laurie Hochmuth.  They crushed it!  The next best team was 3 strokes back, Pam Katros and Paula Plesha.    They were the only two teams under par.  Hearing the talk after, it sounds like we left a lot of stray balls in the weeds at Whitney Oaks. 

There were definite changes for a few players who moved up the leaderboard to the prize spots.  And a few who were so close and won nothing.  Congratulations to everyone who participated and made it a fun time.    The final leaderboard can be found under “quick links” on our website.  I hope everyone had as much fun as I did watching the TBT from start to a great finish.   Only a few points separated the winners at top and bottom. 

Congrats to Lori Lucius who snatched the top prize in Flight A from Andra Saxe by .7.  Those net birdies add up.  Also cheers to Cheryl Vivas who would not let go of first place in Flight B.   She topped Marian Kubiak by 1.2 points. 

It was interesting to note that most of the prize winners did not compete in all of the events.   And, in a stunning leap up the leaderboard, Laurie Hochmuth showed up 4 times, played great golf, and snatched the final prize spot in Flight A.  (I didn’t even give her extra points for playing on her birthday at Whitney Oaks.)  There was a tie for the 15^th spot in Flight B which resulted in prizes awarded down to 16 players. 

I will have prizes for distribution at the first Capitol City Tour event on July 12 at Wildhawk.  (If you have questions about the CCT, there is an explanation under “quick links”.)

 PWGA LEGACY TEAM PLAY

Our Chapter qualifier was conducted at Whitney Oaks on June 29 as part of the Tower Bridge Tour.  We had 6 teams competing for 4 spots.  It was a close competition on a tough course.  The teams who will be advancing to represent the Chapter at the Area Qualifier are:

LPGA Amatuers Sacramento 1: Lori Lucius, Marcia Whiting, Nanci Smith, Kris Corbridge

LPGA Amateurs Sacramento 2: Pam Katros, Paula Plesha, Marian Kubiak, Jan Richmond

The Area Qualifier will be held (at Whitney Oaks again!) on July 14.  Best of luck to both teams.  It would be great to have both of our teams qualify for Finals in September. 

SACRAMENTO CHAPTER CAL CUP

After all the qualifying events, election of a captain, captain’s picks – we have a complete team to represent Sacramento in the August Cal Cup.  Be sure to send good vibes to these ladies if you cross paths in upcoming events.  We will be conducting some match play events to help them get fine tuned for match play.  Our team:

Lori Lucius, Captain

Beryl Scott

Vicki Philpott

Maureen Hannan

Pam Katros

Chao Chen

Maggie Raybourn

Marian Kubiak

Karen Garcia

Sunny Shimabukuro

Marcia Whiting

Andra Saxe

Wow!  It has been an exciting week of tournament golf!

The PWGA Legacy Spring Partners Tournament was held June 17 and 18.  Players competed at The Ridge and Winchester Country Club.  We had 27 chapter members participate!  That is awesome representation and it was fun to see everyone in “tournament mode”.  It was a fourball event -- the best ball between the two partners counted on each hole.  Everyone played hard on these two challenging courses…and we ended up with several flight winners.  

Our BIG winners turned out to be the team of Kristine Burke and Esther Garcia.  They finished 8 under par!  That is such good partner golf.  They were tied for 3rd low net overall and won FIRST PLACE in their flight.  Watch out for these two!

The team of Betty Galvez and Lori Williams finished SECOND in their flight.  This shows that all those practice rounds with the Tuesday Casual League actually pay off.  Way to go!

Also taking SECOND in their flight was the team of Karen Graser and Andra Saxe.  They played two steady rounds -- I'm sure it was all fairways and greens for these two.  Great golf!

Marian Kubiak and Ellie Jones finished THIRD in their flight.  They took 8 strokes off from day one to day two.  That is an impressive comeback!  Yeah!

Marsha Suter and Lynda Lapp played steady with 74 on both days to finish FOURTH in their flight.   Lynda is also a member at The Ridge so I'm sure her insider knowledge helped this team keep the ball in play.  Nice work.

Sunny Shimabukuro and Terri McCall finished FOURTH in their flight -- one stroke behind Kubiak and Jones.  Quite a good battle ladies.  That was a tough flight.  

The team of "Cheryls"...took FOURTH in their flight, in large part to a first day score under par, 71!  Just enough to hold on to the spot on the podium!  Cheryl Beninga and Cheryl Warner!

Hmmm....Marcia is not thrilled when her name is not called in her flight....

...and everything is much better after Marcia (and Lori) receive FOURTH place in their flight via a tiebreaker correction.  (Lori appeared to handle defeat much better than Marcia)

And below is an assortment of pictures from some of the other Chapter members who competed. 

Yolanda Goff and Tyra Jarvis

Pam Katros and Paula Plesha

Laurie Hochmuth and Margie Longo

Beryl Scott and Kris Corbridge

Rita Langolias and Tammy Beckman

Kaitlin Jacobs and Theresa Garcia

From the NCGA Golf April 2025 Magazine:

Karen Garcia, member of the LPGA Amateurs - Sacramento Chapter remembers her win at the 2015 U. S. Senior Women's Championship with NCGA as they get ready to host the U. S. Women's Mid-Amateur on October 4-9.

Read the article HERE...

PWGA Legacy Play Day at Turkey Creek on May 12