HARTFORD, Conn. – Jen Holland is 2-for-2 in earning the Connecticut State Golf Association’s Liz Janangelo Caron Women’s Player of the Year Award.
Holland amassed 737.5 POY points in 11 events thanks mainly to winning the Southern New England Women’s Association Championship for a record eighth time and the SNEWGA Senior Women’s Amateur Championship, finishing seventh in the Tournament of Champions and in a tie for 10th in the Connecticut State Women’s Amateur Championship.
A teacher in Regional School District, Holland also was the local qualifying medalist for the U.S. Women’s Amateur and U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship and won a first-round match in the Women’s Amateur.
Sarah Houle, 18, of Rock Ridge Country Club in Newtown finished second in the POY race with 455 points in six starts, and Connecticut State Women’s Amateur champion Kyra Cox, 15, of eClub of Connecticut was third with 394.67.
Houle, who is a freshman on the William & Mary women’s golf team, won the Junior Connecticut PGA Championship and CIAC Girls Championship and was runner-up to Cox in the State Amateur.
The CSGA established the Janangelo Caron award in 2017 to honor the top female amateur golfer in the state. The award is named for arguably the most decorated female golfer in state history whose litany of honors includes nine American Junior Golf Association titles, with five coming in 2001, five consecutive Connecticut State Women’s Amateur Championships and four Connecticut Women’s Opens, including three in a row. She was the Connecticut Female Athlete of the Year in 2000, the first of three years that she qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open.
Coming out of high school, she was the No. 1 ranked junior player in the United States and continued her dominance at Duke, where she was a four-time first-team All-American and helped the Blue Devils win the NCAA title in 2005 and 2006. Individually, she won seven collegiate titles and was named Atlantic Coast Conference Freshman of the Year in 2003 and NCAA Player of the Year in 2004, when she played on the U.S. Ryder Cup Team.
After graduation from Duke, she won her fourth Connecticut Women’s Open in her pro debut in 2006. She played on the LPGA and Symetra Tours, winning twice on the developmental circuit in 2007. She is now a teaching pro at The Mill River Club on Long Island and occasionally competes, finishing third in the Connecticut Women’s Open this year.
Ben Conroy of New Haven CC won the CSGA’s Dick Tettelbach Player of the Year Award and Patrick McGuinness of Blue Fox Run GC in Avon earned the Dick Siderowf Senior Player of the Year Award.
WILSON TO COACH WESLEYAN
Wesleyan University in Middletown has added women’s golf to its list of varsity sports beginning in the fall of 2019. The Division III school will become the eighth in the NESCAC to sponsor the sport. Jon Wilson, a longtime PGA of America professional now at Lyman Orchards Golf Club in Middlefield, was named the program’s head coach. Wilson has served as an assistant women’s golf coach at Yale University from 1983-87 and as the head coach of the Hand High girls team in Madison.
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