Mission Inn Resort and Club Championship (May 26, 2021)
Featured Groups - Who To Watch
By Brian Weis
Three featured groups highlight the competition for the eighth event of the 2021 Symetra Tour season.
Dewi Weber, Vicky Hurst, Samantha Wagner (No. 1 tee, 8:14 a.m.)
The 2016 NCAA Division I Women's Golf National Individual Champion, Dewi Weber (Groningen, Netherlands), competed for the University of Miami Hurricanes. Last year on the Symetra Tour, Weber claimedthree top-10 finishes. Coming off her second T8 finish this season, Weber returns to the Mission Inn Resort and Club Championship where she finished fourth last year.
Eight-time Symetra Tour Champion,Vicky Hurst (Melbourne, FL) is back in Howey-In-The-Hills where she claimed her best finish of last season, a tie for fifth. The 2011 Team USA Member for the Solheim Cup has an LPGA Tour career best of T11 at the 2012 ANA Inspiration. The Florida native has one top-10 finish in six starts this year, a T6 at the Symetra Classic.
The final member of this featured group is Florida native Samantha Wagner (Windermere, Florida).The University of Florida graduate found her career-best finish in her second start of the season at the Copper Rock Championship with a tie for second. She comes into this week off her seventh career top-10 finish at the IOA Golf Classic present by RP Funding.
Linnea Johansson, Olivia Mehaffey, Avery Zweig (No. 1 tee, 12:30 p.m.)
Linnea Johansson (Bastad, Sweden) was a three-time All-Big 12 performer for Oklahoma State University. Last season, Johansson claimed five top-20 finishes in six starts including runner-up at the Mission Inn Resort and Club Championship.
In 2016, Olivia Mehaffey (Belfast, Ireland) won the Irish Women's Open Championship and the Welsh Ladies Open Stroke Play Championship and helped lead the Great Britain & Ireland team to the Curtis Cup victory. The four-time All-American from Arizona State made her first appearance in a professional event at the 2016 AIG Women's Open. In 2020, Mehaffey made the cut at the 2020 ANA Inspiration and also competed in the AIG Women's Open and U.S. Women's Open. Earlier this year she placed T6 at the Carlisle Arizona Women's Golf Classic as an amateur, this week will be her professional debut.
In January, amateur Avery Zweig (McKinney, Texas) won her first American Junior Golf Association tournament at the Diamond Resorts ANNIKA Invitational presented by Rolex. The win earned the fourteen-year-old an exemption into this week at Mission Inn Resort and Club Championship. Earlier this year, Zweig also claimed third place in the girls 12-13 age division at the Drive, Chip and Putt at Augusta National.
Sierra Sims, August Kim, Karolina Vlckova (No. 10 tee, 2;09 p.m.)
Sierra Sims (Tampa, Florida) was a Women's Golf Coaches Association (WGCA) Second Team All-American at Wake Forest University in 2015. She played the weekend three times in six Symetra Tour starts this year, with a season-best finish of T48 at the Symetra Classic.
One of eleven Florida natives in this week's field, August Kim (St. Augustine, Florida) returns to compete in her second event this season. The first four-time Women's Golf Coaches Association (WGCA) All-American Scholar in Boilermakers history, the Purdue University graduate is in her fifth year on Tour. Kim is coming off a top-20 finish in her home state at the IOA Golf Classic presented by RP Funding.
Completing the final group, Karolina Vlckova (Kladno, Czech Republic) is a University of Florida graduate. A two-time All-SEC Second Team performer for the Gators, Vlckova competed at the NCAA Division I Women's Golf National Championship in each of her four years. Vlckova's career-best finish was T4 at the 2018 FireKeepers Casino Hotel Championship.
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Revised: 05/27/2021 - Article Viewed 7,318 Times
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About: Brian Weis
Brian Weis is the Publisher of GolfTrips.com, a network of golf travel and directory sites including GolfWisconsin.com, GolfMichigan.com, ArizonaGolfer.com, GolfAlabama.com, etc. Professionally, Brian is a member of the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), International Network of Golf (ING), Golf Travel Writers of America (GTWA), International Golf Travel Writers Association (IGTWA) and The Society of Hickory Golfers (SoHG). In 2016, Brian won The Shaheen Cup, an award given to a golf travel writer by his peers.
All of his life, Brian has been around the game of golf. As a youngster, Brian competed at all levels in junior and high school golf. Brian had a zero chance for a college golf scholarship, so he worked on the grounds crew at West Bend Country Club to pay for his University of Wisconsin education. In his adult years, his passion for the game collided with his entrepreneurial spirit and in 2004 launched GolfWisconsin.com. In 2007, the idea for a network of local golf directory sites formed and GolfTrips.com was born. Today, the network consists of a site in all 50 states supported by national sites like GolfTrips.com, GolfGuide.com and GolfPackages.com. It is an understatement to say, Brian is passionate about promoting golf and golf travel on a local, regional, national and international level.
On the golf course, Brian is known as a fierce weekend warrior that fluctuates between a 5-9 handicap. With a soft fade, known as "The Weis Slice", and booming 300+ drives, he can blast it out of bounds with the best of them.
Contact Brian Weis:
GolfTrips.com - Publisher and Golf Traveler
262-255-7600