ROCKLAND – Young girls and even teenagers are a fairly rare sight in golf galleries these days, but there were at least eight young female golfers on hand to watch the final round of the Women’s Maine State Golf Association championship Wednesday at Rockland Golf Club.

The youngsters were with Hermon Meadow pro Thea Davis and Girl Scout volunteer Cathy Willey, who run a program called LPGA/USGA Girls Golf of Greater Bangor. The eight girls varied in age from 6 to 13 and come from all over the Bangor area.

Many of the girls were there to watch players such as 13-time WMSGA champion Martha White, who lives in Hermon and works with the group, and other players like Karen Feeney, Cheryl Paulson, and Peg Buchanan, who are all Hermon Meadow members. This year’s WMSGA winner, Lori Frost, has also worked with the girls in previous summers.

“It’s important to me because I want to give something back to the game that’s been so good to me,” White said. “I think it’s important for the girls because otherwise they wouldn’t have the opportunity to have lessons.”

Meghan Burnett, 13, and Annemarie Gerow, 12, were two of the girls at Rockland Wednesday. Both girls said they learned something watching the WMSGA players.

“One of the girls hit the ball and did a really good backspin,” Burnett said.

“One thing I noticed was that Lori Frost, she starts like this [with her feet together] and then goes like this [spreads out more] for a while,” Gerow added.

The group gets together about once a week, sometimes going to a driving range or playing a round of best-ball. This week’s meeting was the trip to Rockland.

White said there wasn’t anything like the Hermon Meadow program when she was growing up.

“I had a mother and father who played golf, and my sister and I had a choice of staying home or going to the golf course,” she said. “We chose to go to the golf course. So that’s where we learned to play golf.”

Bad break for Quinn

The news wasn’t good for North Haven’s Amber Quinn.

Quinn injured her right wrist during her round Monday while hitting a rock on the sixth hole. Doctors at Penobscot Bay Medical Center didn’t see anything in a quick scan of her X-ray, but on Wednesday she heard from her own doctor – it’s a hairline fracture.

Quinn withdrew from the tournament Tuesday but stayed around Wednesday to cheer on the rest of the golfers. She also felt she had some business to take care of.

“I want that rock,” she said. “I want to go out there [to the sixth hole] with a pick and a shovel and get that rock.”

She never got back out to the course and it’s probably a good thing. Her doctor wants her to rest her wrist for three weeks.