Top players skipping tourney Field for state women’s championship dwindles from 96 to 59

When the 72nd version of the Women’s Maine State Golf Association gets under way Tuesday at Sugarloaf Golf Course in Carrabassett Valley, it will be missing some of its star power.

Only 59 golfers are registered to play the tourney. The tournament has spots for 96 players.

“There are so few playing. Usually we have to turn people away,” WMSGA president Bobbi Berry said.

One player who has decided to pass on this year’s tournament is 13-time champion Martha White of Hermon. White has chosen to visit family in Fort Kent rather than play the tourney.

White said that the difficulty of the golf course was the determining factor in her decision.

“A few years ago I played the New England Open for three days at Sugarloaf. I found it very stressful,” White said.

She said her sister, Pennie Cummings of Lewiston, a five-time WMSGA champion, will also pass on this year’s championship.

“I love Sugarloaf,” White said. “It’s a beautiful golf course, but it’s too difficult for medal play. I think generally speaking that’s part of the feeling. I think that if I’m going off for three days of golf, I want it to be fun.”

Sugarloaf Golf Course is known for its spectacular views and its narrow fairways. It has holes such as the sixth that requires a blind second shot of approximately 150 yards that is all uphill carry. The 14th demands a long approach shot across the Carrabassett River. The course’s tree-lined fairways collect lost balls.

New England Journal of Golf cited the course as the best the public can play in New England. The magazine also noted the course’s “resistance to scoring.”

Golf Digest has named Sugarloaf Maine’s best course for the last 16 years and along with Golf Magazine lists Sugarloaf as one of the top 20 places you can play in the country.

Berry said the tournament committee chose Sugarloaf because representatives of the course wanted to host the event.

“We have a chart that shows where the tournament has been held and we go on a rotating basis. But in the case of Sugarloaf, we chose Sugarloaf because Sugarloaf wanted us,” Berry said.

Berry said she understands that some WMSGA members treat the tournament as a social event. It is a chance, in some cases, for friends who haven’t seen each other in a year to get together for three days of golf and fun. She also understands that some members might not envision Sugarloaf’s tough layout as fun golf.

“But I feel that Sugarloaf is a unique venue. It’s gorgeous. They’re going to put on the greatest event. Anyway, if you want to play competitive golf in Maine, you sorta have to play where the tournament’s being played,” Berry said.

White said she expects many of the players who are passing on the tournament this year will happily go to Sugarloaf in 2003 when it hosts the WMSGA’s Metropolitan. The Metropolitan is a team tournament.

“It’s fine for team and match play. There will be a lot who will play because it’s a team event,” said White, who finished second in last year’s tourney.

Heading the list of the 59 competitors who will play in the tournament is Waterville’s Abby Spector, who has won the last six WMSGA championships. The 21-year-old Spector will be a senior at the University of North Carolina in the fall. Spector is on her game. Earlier this summer she fired an 8-under-par 63 at Northeast Harbor Golf Club.

Hoping to challenge Spector will be Lamoine’s Tiffany Shoppe and Cape Elizabeth’s Alyssa Hayes.

Hayes, 20, said that while she understands the social aspect of the tournament and why some players are staying away, the WMSGA is the tournament she has been working to get ready for.

“Some of the others do look at it as a social event and that’s OK. So I can understand why they might not come to Sugarloaf,” Hayes said. “But I think with the younger generation of golfers, we look at it as competition. It will be fun to see Abby, Tiffany, and the others, but it’s also a tournament. It’s the tournament I’ve been gearing up for all summer.”