Solid Start Helps Geolat on the Way to 1st-Round Lead at State Open

July 30, 2019 | 6 min.

By Mike Fermoyle (mikefermoyle@gmail.com)

WEST ST. PAUL -- For Lexi Geolat, the first order of business in the first round of the Minnesota Women's State Open Championship was to get out of the starting blocks without any major stumbles. 

That was something she didn't do last week in the MGA Women's State Amateur at Town & Country Club, where she made a triple bogey on the first hole the first day, and then started double bogey, bogey the second day, on her way to a tie for 30th place.

On Tuesday, there were no such early disasters for Geolat at Southview Country Club.

"I played a really solid first hole," she said of her par at No. 1 (353 yards, par 4), and she followed it with another par at the 166-yard, par-3 second hole.

"After that," Geolat added, "I just let things happen."

The result was 1-over-par 72, which gave the junior-to-be at North Dakota State a one-stroke lead going into Wednesday's final round of the State Open. (The State Amateur was 54 holes; the State Open is 36.)

Two other college players are tied for second with 73's. Megan Munneke, who will be a sophomore at South Dakota, produced what looked like a Variety Pack on her scorecard -- 5 birdies, 6 pars, 7 bogeys. She was 1 under after seven holes, then alternated bogeys and pars for the next nine holes, before finishing her day with a pair of birdies on Southview's two finishing par-5 holes: the 17th (490 yards) and the 18th (481). 

Also at 73 is Anni Heck, the former state high school champion from Visitation who will be a junior at Denver this fal. She got off to a shaky start, with bogeys on three of the first four holes. But she righted the ship, beginning with a birdie at the long, par-3 fifth hole. Heck got back to even par by chipping in for consecutive birdies at the par-4 12th and  par-3 13th holes, but an errant tee shot at the par-4 14th hole ended up in a water hazard and led to a double bogey. She made a bogey at the longest par-4 at Southview, No. 16, but bounced back from that at the 17th, thanks to an 80-yard wedge shot and a short putt for birdie.

Like Geolat, Heck wasn't all that happy with her play at the State Amateur. She tied for 22nd. 

"I've had two lessons from my coach since then, and that really helped" she noted. "I was hitting solid shots today."

Southview is Heck's home course, but she didn't feel that gave her any real advantage. Nor did she feel any added pressure.

"I just wanted to play a solid round of golf and hit a lot of good shots," she said, "That's what I did." 

One shot behind Heck and Munneke, at 74, there is a three-way tie for fourth, which includes the only professional  among the top 14 players in the first-day standings --  Andriel Aimua. She's tied with Alexandra Schilling and Jasi Acharya. Acharya is a former Montana State Amateur champ who spent several years as a pro playing on the Symetra Tour (one level below the LPGA Tour). She got her amateur status back and nearly won the MGA Women's Match Play Championship earlier this summer. She lost the final to the University  of Minnesota's No. 1 player, Grace Kellar, on the fourth extra hole. (Kellar shot 78 on Tuesday and is tied for 20th place.)

Other than Heck, all of the reigning and former state high school winners in the State Open field seem to have shot 75 and are in a five-way tie for seventh. That group includes this year's Class AAA champ, Isabella McCauley (Simley); the AA champ, Sophia Yoemans (Red Wing), the 2018 AAA champ, Kathryn VanArragon (Blaine); and former five-time AA champ Kate Smith (Detroit Lakes). Smith recently finished her sophomore year at Nebraska.

Yoemans is actually a three-time high school champion, having won the AAA title in 2017 and the AA crown in 2018 -- with a record score of 63-66--129 -- and '19. She will be a freshman at Missouri this fall.

More recently, the 14-year-old VanArragon, who hasn't started ninth grade yet, became the youngest winner of the Women's State Amateur, having finished five clear of the field last week at Town & Country Club.

Geolat is familiar with Yoemans, because she went to Lake City High School.

"Red Wing was our biggest rival -- by far," she said.

When Geolat was a senior, however, Red Wing opted up into Class AAA. That was in 2017, and in the Wingers' absence, Lake City won the Section 1AA tournament by 121 shots. Geolat (pronounced Gillette -- "like the razor," she says) was the medalist by 10 strokes. She went on to finish sixth in the state tournament that year. 

On Tuesday, Goelat didn't exactly score the way you would have expected her to have done it. She was 1 under on the par-3's, even on the par-4's, and on the par-5's -- usually the easiest holes to make birdies on -- she was 2 over. Two of her three bogeys came on the front nine. She three-putted the par-4 third hole and hit a tree with a wedge shot on the par-5 sixth. After that, she made seven pars in a row, and then birdied two of the harder holes on the course: the par-4 14th (386 yards) and the scenic par-3 15th (157).

That got her back to even par, and she was in position to improve on that when she hit a good drive into the fairway at the par-5 17th. But she hit her second shot well to left, where it bounced of the cart path and disappeared. The lost ball penalty cost her two strokes (one stroke and distance), but she recovered one of them when she got her new ball up and down for a bogey 6. She concluded her round with a par at the 18th.

Geolat says that she didn't really have any expectations coming into this tournament.

"Mainly," she said, "I just want to stay calm and play well."  


Minnesota Women's State Open Championship

At Southview Country Club

Par 71, 5,954 yards

West St. Paul 

First-round results 


1. Lexi Geolat (a)                     72

T2. Megan Munneke (a)          73

T2. Anni Heck (a)                    73

T4. Andriel Aimua (p)              74

T4. Jasi Acharya (a)               74

T4. Alexandra Schilling (a)     74

T7. Kathryn VanArragon (a)   75

T7. Isabella McCauley (a)      75

T7. Sophia Yoemans (a)        75

T7. Kate Smith (a)                 75

T7. Alexandra Stone (a)       75

T12. Molly Stevens (a)         76

T12. Joanna Kim (a)            76

T12. Kate Lillie (a)               76

T15. Courtney Wedin (a)    77

T15. Karen Weiss (p)         77

T15. Catherine Monty (a)   77

T15. Shelby Busker (a)      77

T15. Savannah Stone (p)  77

T20. Morgan Hetletved (a) 78

T20. Janice Kim (a)           78

T20. Grace Kellar (a)         78

T20. Sydney Bormann (a) 78


 

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