By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf

Shelly Stouffer has been waiting almost a year to enjoy one particularly nice perk she received for winning last summer’s Canadian Senior Women’s Championship.

The wait is finally over. Stouffer is ready to cash in her exemption and tee it up at this week’s U.S. Senior Women’s Open in Kettering, Ohio. Stouffer acknowledges she may feel a little star-struck this week.

The 120-player field is chock-full of LPGA Tour legends.

Joanne Carner, Annika Sorenstam, Laura Davies, Juli Inkster, Helen Alfredsson and Amy Alcott are just a few of the big names competing this week.

Stouffer is coming off the biggest win of her golfing life. She won the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship in Alaska earlier this month and is anxious to see how her game stacks up against the top senior women pros.

Stouffer, who has won three straight B.C. Senior Women’s Championships, is confident she can show well this week. “I think a top 10 would be a very successful tourney for me,“ she said over the phone from Ohio. “Doing better than that would be great. My goal is definitely to make the cut and hopefully be in it at the end. I think I have the game where I can do it.”

The South Course at NCR Country Club figures to be set-up tougher than she is accustomed to seeing in recent senior amateur events. “I think it is going to be longer, about 6,300 yards, which isn’t too bad,” she said. “I played that distance at Pheasant Glen recently and I played quite well. But this is a lot hillier and the greens are quite slopey, so you have got to be below the hole. There’s lots of rough and they’ve had quite a bit of rain recently. It’s very similar to what my home course, Fairwinds, is like in the spring.”

Stouffer’s sister, Vancouver-area teaching pro Sandra Comadina, is caddying for her this week. This is just the fourth playing of the U.S. Senior Women’s Open. Laura Davies won the inaugural event in 2018, Helen Alfredsson won it in 2019 and Annika Sorenstam won it last year. The tournament was not played in 2020 due to Covid-19.

Stouffer is particularly excited about her Wednesday practice round as she managed to get a spot in Sorenstam’s group. “That should be cool,” she said.

OVER AND OUT: Adam Hadwin’s PGA TOUR season came to a close with a tie for 44th at the BMW Championship in Wilmington, Del. Hadwin entered the second event of the FedEx Cup playoffs 59th on the points list and the Abbotsford product would have needed a huge finish to move into the top 30 and qualify for next week’s Tour Championship. Ontario’s Corey Conners will be the lone Canadian playing in the Tour Championship. Conners tied for fifth at the BMW and enters the Tour Championship 24th on the points list.

BABY STEP: He still has much work to do, but Merritt’s Roger Sloan made some progress toward regaining his PGA TOUR status in the first week of the three-event Korn Ferry Tour Finals. Sloan finished in a five-way tie for 32nd at 14-under par at the Boise Open in Idaho. In doing so, he collected 44 points. The fail-safe threshold for one of the 25 PGA TOUR cards in the three-event Korn Ferry Finals is 220 points. So Sloan probably needs to collect at least 176 points in the final two events to earn one of those 25 cards. The second Korn Ferry Tour Finals event, the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship, goes this week in Columbus, Ohio.

SHIN SHARP: Former Maple Ridge resident Justin Shin collected his first win in four years at the Woosong Construction Open on the Korean Tour. Shin, a graduate of Thomas Haney Secondary in Maple Ridge, won in a playoff after finishing the event at 13-under par. The win was worth $137,000 Cdn to Shin, known as Shin Yong-gu in South Korea.

JUNIOR FINALISTS: Coquitlam’s June Hsiao and Braxton McDonald of Coldstream both made it to their respective championship match at the Pacific Northwest Golf Association’s Junior Championships in Pendleton, Ore. The 15-year-old Hsiao fell 6&5 to Jillian Breedlove of Pasco, Wash., in the girls final at Wildhorse Golf Course. McDonald lost the boys’ championship match 7&5 to Jake Rodgers of Mulino, Ore. Both championship matches were contested over 36 holes. 

FRENCH CLASS: Surrey’s Lauren Kim and A.J. Ewart of Coquitlam are part of Canada’s six-person team for the World Amateur Team Championships in France. Kim, who is coming off a silver medal performance at the Canada Summer Games, will join Nicole Gal of Oakville, Ont., and Brooke Rivers of Brampton, Ont., in the women’s competition. It goes Aug, 24-27 at Le Golf National (Albatros Course) and Golf de Saint-Nom-de-la-Bretèche (Red Course) just outside Paris. Ewart will join Johnny Travale of Storey Creek, Ont., and Garrett Rank of Elmira, Ont., for the men’s competition, which goes Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at the same two courses the women are playing.

TOP 25 FOR ROWE: Lawren Rowe of Squamish tied for 21st the the CentrePort Canada Rail Park Manitoba Open on the PGA Tour Canada circuit. Rowe closed with a four-under 68 and completed the event at 12-under par. Parker Coody of Plano, Tex., finished at 27-under par and beat the field by eight shots. Kimberley’s Jared du Toit tied for 44th at eight-under. PGA Tour Canada heads south of the border this week for the CRMC Championship in Brainerd, Minn.

CHIP SHOTS: The PGA of BC Championship goes Aug. 22-23 at Pitt Meadows Golf Club. Jake Scarrow of Gorge Vale Golf Club in Victoria is the defending champion. . .Richmond’s Tina Jiang, who won individual gold and mixed team gold at the Canada Summer Games, was one of two athletes selected to carry the British Columbia flag at the closing ceremonies of the Games. Jiang shared the honour with Vancouver’s Leo Sammarelli, a wheelchair racer who won three medals.