Symetra Tour mom tied for lead at Pinehaven
Rohanna shares top spot with Vu, Mccrary heading to final round Kennedy Swedick shoots 80, misses cut, but learns a lot.
Rochester to the Capital Region shouldn’t be a 14-hour trip over a couple of days, but Rachel Rohanna took a detour this week.
After finishing second in last week’s rain-shortened Symetra Tour tournament in the Flour City, Rohanna made a five-hour trek to home in Marianna, Pa. — south of Pittsburgh — to spend time with her 3-year-old daughter, Gemelia, before driving nine additional hours to the Capital Region for the Twin Bridges Championship at Pine
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haven Country Club.
The side trip didn’t seem to slow down Rohanna, who shot a 3-underpar 68 Saturday and is in a three-way tie for the lead after two rounds of the 54-hole tournament. Rohanna, Lilia Vu of Fountain Valley, Calif., and firstround leader Maddie Mccrary of Wylie, Texas, are all at 5-under 137. Because of the threat of rain, the final round Sunday will start at 7:30 a.m., and players will go off the first and 10th tees.
A pro since 2013, Rohanna, 30, is one of the few mothers on the tour, which provides a platform for young pro golfers to try to make the LPGA. She said she has her daughter with her about half the time, but this week Gemelia and Rohanna’s husband, Ethan Virgili, stayed home.
“Whether she’s so used to me traveling or because she has no concept of time yet, she’s been fine with me going to tournaments,” Rohanna said of her daughter. “She’s like, oh, see you in a few days. It helps me that she’s OK with it.
“Now, how many years do I have left of that? I’m not sure because next year, she’ll be 4. That’s a big step from 3 to 4. It’s nice when she’s here, and especially if she can like actually watch me hit a few shots. I want her to like this and see all the women out here playing and realize like, oh, this is pretty cool.”
Having more to worry about than birdies and bogeys has brought balance to her life, Rohanna said.
“When you’re playing and you’re hitting bad shots and you’re just like, oh, it’s fine, you have different priorities,” she said. “Looking back to 2019,
Full scores from the second round of the Twin Bridges Championship.
that was the year my daughter turned 1, and I missed my LPGA card at Qschool. That was almost devastating to me, not just because I missed my card, but you want to do so well for them. You want them to watch you and see you succeed, and it’s hard to think that this is all part of the process at the time. Luckily, she was young enough to not really know what was going on.
“I’m just trying to stick with the process. This is what I chose as my career. I’m going to have a bad round, a bad tournament, a bad year maybe, but just sticking with it — and I know my game — it will take me where I want to be.”
The process led to six birdies in her Saturday round. She made three putts in the 20-foot range but also missed three inside 10 feet.
“And I had a chip-in for a bogey,” Rohanna said, “so it evened itself out.”
Vu, 23, who played collegiately at UCLA, carded the low round of the day, a 4-under 67. She started on the back nine and made birdies on five of her first seven holes, then closed with 10 pars on the final 11.
“I felt comfortable over my putts,” Vu said. “The front nine yesterday, I hit some putts 10 feet past the hole because I was adjusting from last week. Last week’s (greens) were pretty slow. On the back nine I was able to make a bunch of birdies, so I learned how to just dial it back a little bit and then I knew that going into today.”
Mccrary, who shot a 66 Friday, started with eight straight pars, then was all over the map. She finished with four birdies, two bogeys and a double bogey.
“My driver wasn’t working as well, so a lot of times I pulled 3-wood just to keep it in the fairway to give myself a better opportunity to get a good chance for birdie,” Mccrary said. “Staying really patient was really key for me.”
The tri-leaders are two shots clear of four players tied for fourth. The winner will receive $26,750.