HARTFORD — Hannah Dunk was admittedly the least qualified golfer on the property Thursday when she arrived at Washington County Golf Course bright and early to tee it up in the U.S. Girls Junior Championship qualifying.
The UW-Green Bay recruit from Milton had never competed in one before.
UW-Green Bay recruit Hannah Dunk is congratulated by WSGA tournament director Geoff Pirkl after winning the 2023 U.S. Girls Junior Championship qualifier at Washington County GC in Hartford.
From left, University of Wisconsin recruit Ava Salay of Prescott, UW-Green Bay recruit Hannah Dunk of Milton and Kacie Moon of Northbrook, Ill., pose with their invitations to the 2023 U.S. Girls Junior Championship in Colorado.
“I came into this not thinking anything much,” Dunk said. “I wasn’t really nervous or anything. I was just going out there to play another round.”
Dunk left with an even-par 72 and another stop on her final summer of junior golf. As the qualifying medalist, she was one of three golfers to advance to the U.S. Girls Junior, to be played July 17-22 at the Eisenhower Golf Club at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Kacie Moon, who will be a junior this fall at Glenbrook High School in Northbrook, Ill., qualified second with a 73 while University of Wisconsin recruit Ava Salay, the two-time defending WIAA Division 2 state champion from Prescott, parred her final seven holes to make it with a 75.
Hartland’s Jessica Guiser, a rising senior at IMG Academy in Florida and a University of Florida commit, shot 76 and won a five-way playoff for the first alternate spot after qualifying a year ago. Eden Lohrbach of Ames, Iowa, earned second-alternate status ahead of DeForest’s Abigail Henriksen, Brookfield’s Treva Dod and Katie Suk of Highland Park, Ill.
“Being in the place I am right now means a lot,” said Dunk, who put herself there by making two birdies and two bogeys (one of each on each side of the golf course) to go along with 14 pars. “I’ve never done anything like this in qualifying for a huge tournament. It’s pretty cool.”
Dunk came into the qualifier on the heels of a two-day stay at the Wisconsin Women’s State Match Play at Racine Country Club, a tight tree-lined course that is perhaps the polar opposite of Washington County. She qualified seventh with a 79 and won her opening match before falling to Oconomowoc’s Grace Suter.
2023 U.S. Junior Qualifying | Hannah Dunk, Milton
“Two completely different courses; Racine is super in the trees,” Dunk said. “So that kind of helped me straighten out my clubs and everything. Honestly, it helped me play better (Thursday).”
Likewise, Salay came away from Racine CC disappointed that she couldn’t last longer in defense of her 2022 state match-play title — she fell in the second round to eventual winner McKenna Nelson of Beaver Dam — but eager to advance to her first national championship in junior golf.
“It means a lot to me; this was one of my big goals this year,” Salay said. “I’m so happy I was able to achieve it, especially at this golf course. It played tough today.”
Salay survived a bumpy front nine that featured two birdies, two bogeys and a double-bogey at the par-5, seventh hole. Her back nine featured a lone bogey surrounded by eight pars, but it was good enough to avoid turning the 5-for-2 playoff for alternate positions into a six-way playoff for the last spot.
“I made a pretty tough bogey on No. 11,” Salay said. “After that, I just said I’m not going to try and pull off anything crazy. I’m going to play my game and make pars and if a birdie falls, that’s great. That was my mindset the last seven holes and I made seven pars.”
In addition to Guiser, who won the qualifier a year ago at Blackhawk CC in Madison, Kate Brody of Grand Blanc, Mich. — Salay’s future teammate at UW who also qualified a year ago — was back in the field. So was reigning WIAA Division 1 state champion Izzi Stricker of Madison, who will also be a Badger starting in 2024.
“I didn’t really try to look at anyone and say ‘I don’t know if I can beat this girl or this girl,'” Salay said. “I just looked at it as a whole and thought ‘If I could play my best, I can get through. I knew if I played good golf I’d get there so that’s just what I tried to do.”