The championship’s medalist and top seed, Steinhagen shot the stroke-play equivalent of four under par in the deciding match to take home her first VSGA title in the association’s premier women’s event.

A spring graduate of Oakton High School, Steinhagen spent more than a month away from competitive golf and made her return to championship play at the Women’s Am a memorable one. After starting the championship by shooting 2-under 70 in stroke-play qualifying, she survived sweltering heat and the demands of four matches to take home the Kohler Trophy awarded to the champion.    

“I wanted to win this championship and I knew if I had a good first round going into match play that I would have enough confidence to make birdies and beat some of the best players in Virginia,” Steinhagen says.

Focused throughout the match, Steinhagen could hold back her unbridled joy no longer afterward.

“I guess it worked,” she laughs. “I’m still trying to come down from it all.”

The match featured exceptional play much of the way and a loser in name only. An 11-hole stretch from Nos. 6-17 produced nine birdies. Steinhagen enjoyed the better of it, collecting five birdies to build as much as a 4-up lead during that span, before Greenlief answered in the late stages.

Greenlief, a rising junior at the University of Virginia, got the run started with a conceded birdie from 20 inches at the short par-4 sixth hole. Steinhagen battled an off and on putter during the early part of the match, but saw it wake up in a seven-hole span from Nos. 8-14 that she played in five under par to build a 4-up lead and take control of the match.

After Greenlief somehow navigated a huge swale and holed a downhill 27-footer for an unlikely par at the eighth, Steinhagen displayed some short game magic of her own, draining a left to right breaking birdie putt from a foot inside her opponent to take a 1-up lead that she wouldn’t relinquish.

Steinhagen then stuffed short iron shots close for ensuing birdies at the following two holes, knocking in a 4-footer at the par-5 ninth and a 10-footer one hole later to go 3 up.   

Greenlief temporarily quelled the Steinhagen surge, cutting the match to a 2-holes down deficit by holing a 12-footer for birdie from left of the cup at the par-4 11th.

In control of her game, especially during the most pressure-packed points of the encounter, Steinhagen played a wedge to flagstick-high before holing an 8-footer for birdie and a win at the par-5 13th hole to move back to 3 up. Greenlief used her length to find the fringe in two, 40 feet short of the hole, but would narrowly miss her attempt for birdie and an important halve.

At the dogleg left par-4 14th hole, Steinhagen completed the run by holing an uphill 22-footer for birdie, nearly chasing the ball into the cup as she moved to dormie-4.

“With all of those birdies, I can’t even describe the back nine – it was just awesome,” Steinhagen says. “There was so much adrenaline going through my body. I just wanted to stay consistent and not have any mess-up holes.”

Mistakes were kept to a minimum on the part of both finalists, who combined for 10 birdies. Playing in front of an understandably pro-U.Va. gallery and with ’09 Women’s Am winner and former teammate Whitney Neuhauser on her bag, Greenlief responded in the late moments.

She assertively hit the back of the cup with her 14-foot birdie putt at the par-4 15th hole to get within three and willed in a 10-footer a hole later, throwing her right fist in the air with the rally seemingly in full swing.

“I kind of looked at Whitney and I was like, ‘I’m not going to lose this match on [No.] 15,” says Greenlief, a sophomore member of the golf team at U.Va. “It wasn’t going to happen that way. I wanted to go down with a fight and not make it easy.”

With the tide of the match turning Greenlief’s way, Steinhagen remained collected. Even after blocking her tee shot into the right rough at the demanding par-4 17th hole, she calmly recovered to play her approach 18 feet short of the hole. After Greenlief’s 25-footer for birdie missed, Steinhagen closed the encounter by stroking her birdie putt to tap-in range.   

If ever Steinhagen needed validation for taking a respite from the game, the value of the time off revealed itself this week at the Women’s Am.

“People told me this week that I should take breaks more often,” she laughs. “I am really glad that I took time off to get back to the basics and my game. I worked on simple things and tried not to make everything complicated. I had some other issues to get through.”

She paused and smiled.

“And I guess I got through them. I definitely was hoping to play well this week, but I don’t think I was fully expecting to play this well with all the birdies throughout the round.”

Greenlief shot three under in her own right, but she lamented some putts wouldn’t fall at timely moments, especially during her opponent’s birdie barrage.

“I was hitting my approaches just as close, but I just couldn’t convert the putts. That was the difference in the match,” says Greenlief, the two-time reigning Virginias Women’s Stroke Play champion. “In a normal round of golf, you’re not going to make every single 6- to 8-footer. You’re going to miss some here and there and you don’t think twice about it. But when it’s to tie or win a hole, it’s a big deal, so you feel it more.

“I’m happy with how I played and this is my favorite event. I wish I would’ve made a couple more putts – four or five under would’ve been great today,” Greenlief laughs. “I’m happy with the way I hit it. I wish I could’ve taken back a couple of shots, but it’s always that way with golf.”

Steinhagen’s break will likely soon become a distant memory. Following the Women’s Am, she’ll play five consecutive days of competitive golf. She will help represent the eight-player Virginia team at this weekend’s Virginia-Maryland Junior Girls’ Team Matches in Ellicott, City, Md. Then it’s off to the Country Club of York (Pa.) for U.S. Women’s Amateur sectional qualifying on Monday, followed by the VSGA Junior Girls’ Championship at Indian Creek Yacht & Country Club in Kilmarnock on Tuesday-Wednesday, July 13-14.

For Steinhagen, who is headed to Longwood University in the fall on a golf scholarship, her first VSGA victory provides a measure of momentum. 

“I’m really happy that I played this well,” she says. “It’s a huge confidence boost going into the next couple of weeks and then into college at Longwood.”

KESWICK –– Results from final round matches at the 85th VSGA Women’s Amateur Championship at Glenmore Country Club (5,808 yards, par 36-36—72) on Friday, July 9 (stroke play qualifying score indicated).

CHAMPIONSHIP FLIGHT FINAL DAY RESULT

(1) Amanda Steinhagen (Oak Hill), 70 def. (6) Lauren Greenlief (Oakton), 75, 2 and 1

CHAMPIONSHIP FLIGHT CONSOLATION FINAL DAY RESULT

(16) Elizabeth Bose (Norfolk), 79 def. (10) Lauren Coughlin (Chesapeake), 75, 2 and 1

FIRST FLIGHT FINAL DAY RESULT

(5) Kristine Rohrbaugh (Richmond), 79 def. (11) Mimi Hoffman (Springfield), 82, 3 and 2 

FIRST FLIGHT CONSOLATION RESULT

(3) Hannah Pierce (King George), 79 def. (9) Stephanie Eybers (Haymarket), 81, by default

SECOND FLIGHT FINAL DAY RESULT

(2) Cindy Hollingshead (Manakin-Sabot), 81 def. (5) Margaret McGehee (Richmond), 4 and 3

SECOND FLIGHT CONSOLATION FINAL DAY RESULT

(6) Angela Baskette (Arlington), 84 def. (8) Rebecca Compton (South Riding), 89, 2 and 1

THIRD FLIGHT/THIRD FLIGHT CONSOLATION RESULT

Marilyn Bussey (Roanoke) won the third flight with a cumulative point total of 45½  points. Charlottesville’s Mary Kay Kotelec was the runner-up with 30½ points, and Kitty Alderson (Sutherlin) was the third flight consolation winner with 32 points.