While the competition was top notch, the results were, well, ho-hum. At least that’s how the women golfers from Mount Vernon Country Club handled the 64th annual Virginia State Team Matches. The six-player team won the championship at Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville on Aug. 31-Sept. 2, its third straight title and fifth since 2000.
Mount Vernon draws upon a solid population of women golfers at the club, and this year the team selected six experienced players — Katie Cox, Linda DiVall, Kim Franks, Joan Gardner, Shawn McCullough and Susan Podolsky. They won medalist honors in the first round, which yielded the top seed on the championship flight. In the first of two match play rounds, Mount Vernon beat the host club, Farmington, and then dusted Portsmouth’s Elizabeth Manor in the finals.
"All three of our teams were pretty evenly balanced," Gardner said afterward. "Because we play so much golf together, you develop chemistry, we know each other’s games, and I think that helps."
Mount Vernon kept the same two-player, better-ball teams in each round — Podolsky-McCullough, DiVall-Franks, and Cox-Gardner.
All of the Mount Vernon players are professionals in their day jobs, which range from FBI special agent to engineer. Each juggles her vacation time to take off for golf tournaments.