State’s top junior nearing college decision
By Mike Blum
This will be the last year Mariah Stackhouse plays a full-time junior golf schedule, and the nationally-ranked Riverdale resident is intent on making it her best ever.
Despite beginning the final round seven strokes behind the leader, Stackhouse still managed to add to her growing list of trophies, winning a recent American Junior Golf Association event at Country Club of the South in a playoff.
It was the third AJGA victory for Stackhouse, and sets up for the possibility of her first multi-win season on the AJGA Tour. Her first win came in 2009 in Ringgold, and she added a second victory last year in Alabama.
Stackhouse, who is about to complete her junior year at North Clayton HS, has made a habit of winning in recent years at both the junior and adult levels. She won back-to-back GSGA Girls Championships in 2007 and ’08, and shortly after her second state junior title, added the first of her two women’s state amateur titles, capturing the Georgia Women’s Golf Association Championship in 2008 and ’09.
Last year, Stackhouse completed her sweep of the state’s top tournaments for girls and women, taking the Georgia Women’s Open in her first appearance in the event.
After the first round of the Exide Technologies Junior Open at Country Club of the South, it did not appear very likely that Stackhouse was going to add it to her list of tournament victories.
Stackhouse opened the tournament with a 79 in chilly, windy conditions, failing to make a birdie in the round. Meanwhile, Floridian Samantha Wagner, a runner-up in the tournament last year at CCoS who was in the same group with Stackhouse, went out in 4-under 32 before falling back on the tougher back nine, finishing with a 72.
Wagner was four shots ahead of her closest pursuer and seven in front of Stackhouse, who began the final round tied for 9th. After bogeys at the final two holes on the front nine, Stackhouse was still seven strokes off Wagner’s lead, but birdies at 10 and 12 gave her some hope of pulling out a victory.
Unfortunately for Stackhouse, she spent the next three holes trying to escape from greenside bunkers or negotiating a testy chip shot and came away with three straight bogeys.
Despite the stretch of bogeys, Stackhouse was undeterred, although she was a bit peeved after being informed that she was getting closer to the lead after her strong start on the back nine.
“My mom updated me, but didn’t say where I was. She said ‘I think you’re in second’, but after I made a few birdies, I proceeded to go bogey, bogey, bogey.”
Knowing how difficult the back nine can be at CCoS, Stackhouse still felt she could win if she finished strong.
“I felt like if you steady yourself, you still had a chance.”
Stackhouse responded with a birdie on the par-5 16th, perhaps the most demanding hole on the course, and gave herself birdie opportunities on both the 17th and 18th. Although she did not convert either, her birdie-par-par finish put her right back in contention, as Wagner and the other contenders were struggling as they neared the finish.
Wagner’s comfortable lead disappeared when she made a triple bogey on the short but perilous 12th and followed with a double bogey on the par-3 13th, which features alternate greens separated by a creek.
Rinko Mitsunaga and Jessica Haigwood, both of Roswell, were right there with Wagner and Stackhouse on the closing holes, but Mitsunaga double-bogeyed the 16th, while Haigwood faltered over the final two holes.
Wagner settled down to make four straight pars, and still had the lead coming to the 18th. But she had to scramble to make bogey, sending her and Stackhouse to a playoff with totals of 153.
When she realized she might be in a playoff, Stackhouse headed to the practice range and hit a few shots with her wedge and 9-iron, the clubs she would likely need for her approach to the first green.
After an excellent tee shot, Stackhouse had just a wedge left for her approach and stuck it to 5 feet. Wagner came up short with her second shot, and chipped just inside Stackhouse’s mark. Stackhouse rolled in the birdie putt to take the playoff, continuing her success when she has to go extra holes.
“I’ve got a pretty good track record in playoffs,” Stackhouse observed, estimating that she has been in “maybe ten and lost two.”
Stackhouse’s introduction to golf came at an early age, as she began accompanying her father to the driving range when she was just 2 years old. When she turned 6 and began showing a definite aptitude for the game, her father stopped playing to concentrate his efforts on developing his daughter’s emerging skills.
From the outset, Stackhouse was drawn to golf in part because of the social nature of the game. Stackhouse enjoys the travel and the opportunity to meet new people, as opposed to the confined nature of team sports.
“You can converse with the people you’re playing with, and I’ve made a lot of new friends. That’s what special about golf,” Stackhouse says.
It didn’t hurt that Stackhouse was also enjoying lots of success on the course, and she began to realize, “If I can win tournaments around here and in the state, I can win outside the state.”
Without any excess prodding from her parents, Stackhouse has dedicated herself to golf, although she readily admits, “Practice is not as much fun as playing. But if you don’t practice, you’re not going to do as well. I love to compete, but to do as well as you can, you have to practice.”
As one of the country’s top junior girls, Stackhouse has attracted plenty of attention from college coaches, and is getting close to making her decision about what university she is going to attend.
Stackhouse has narrowed her list down to four finalists – Duke, Stanford, Florida and Georgia. As outstanding as she is at golf, Stackhouse is a comparable success in the classroom, and her decision will be based more on academics then where she prefers to continue her golf career.
“This is the first life-changing decision you get to make and you want to be up front with the coaches and ask the right questions about the environment you want to be in.”
Although Stackhouse aspires to playing professionally after college, she says she is “putting education before golf.” Stackhouse is keenly aware of the shrinking playing opportunities on the LPGA Tour, and will be prepared for a future that may not include playing golf at the professional level.
“I want to make sure I’ll be OK either way. That’s why I’m relying so much on education.”
Stackhouse says she has no geographic preferences, and doesn’t think the ability to drive home in a few hours makes much of a difference, with her golf and academic responsibilities keeping her on or near campus, whether she is a short drive away in Athens or across the country in California.