WISCONSIN STATE
WOMEN’S OPEN
TITLE SPONSOR
SUPPORTING PARTNERS
Write-up provided by Wisconsin.Golf and Rob Hernandez – robhernandez.golf@gmail.com
Images provided by Wisconsin.Golf and Jim Kelsh – jimkelsh@gmail.com
RACINE — The sunset was starting to look pretty darn good to Elise Hoven as it relates to her golf career. And what she did on a sun-splashed Wednesday at Meadowbrook Country Club with such great composure and such unflappable execution doesn’t change where Hoven sees herself a year from now.
The newly minted Sentry Wisconsin State Women’s Open champion will make this her final summer with a heavy schedule of amateur tournaments. Hoven will return to Fargo, N.D., this fall and play her final season of college golf at North Dakota State, where she was second on the team in scoring as a junior (74.82), a hair behind Madi Hicks (74.71), who was her caddie this week. Hoven will graduate with a degree in psychology in May and set out to find a job that may — or may not — afford her time to play golf in the volumes she has for the last decade.
For the record, that job will not be as a professional golfer, no matter how well she played the part Wednesday in a 2-under-par 70 that featured six birdies — the last on a 40-foot putt on the 18th green for a three-stroke victory over Madison’s Bobbi Stricker (74) and Beaver Dam’s McKenna Nelson (69).
“I have put a lot of hard work and dedication into this sport and I love golf,” Hoven said. “I just don’t want a life on the road. I just don’t want to go pro.
“I really love practicing with my team. Like, when I came back (to Wisconsin) for the summer, it’s hard to go back to practicing alone, which would be what would happen in the future. I just don’t think (professional golf) is for me.”
In fact, if Hoven could have frozen in time the moment, she rolled in that long putt she was just trying to lag close to the hole, she’d have had a snapshot of almost all the special things and special people golf has brought into her life.
There were Stricker and second-round leader Ava Salay of Prescott — two worthy opponents who went back and forth with Hoven, who caught Salay with a birdie on No. 8 and took the lead for good when she chipped in for birdie from just behind the green on No. 9 and held off Stricker down the stretch. There was Hicks, her teammate from Victoria, Minn., who caddied all week and will have Hoven on her bag at the Minnesota State Women’s Amateur in July.
Just off the green, there were her three North Dakota State teammates from Wisconsin — Green Bay’s Jo Baranczyk, Racine’s Norah Roberts and Milton’s Hannah Dunk. They all spent the week at Roberts’ home less than 10 minutes from the course and all four made the 36-hole cut at the State Women’s Open.
And, of course, there were her parents, Jill and Tim, who drove her to so many junior golf tournaments when she was younger. They walked every step of the final round with their daughter, who had finished no higher than T-15 but no lower than T-19 in her previous five starts in the State Women’s Open before recording her biggest triumph since the 2021 WPGA Junior Championship.
“I’ve played in this event a long time and I haven’t really started off the best so it was really cool to finish off strong,” Hoven said. “Going into this week, I just really wanted to have a good first round, honestly, because the last couple of years have been a struggle for me. I have always been struggling to make the cut after the first day so that was my main goal and then I kind of took it from there.”
Hoven came to Meadowbrook armed with confidence following a visit to swing coach Kevin Kramp. But after shooting 75-73 in blustery conditions Monday and Tuesday, it didn’t manifest itself until Wednesday when she gave herself birdie look after birdie look and started to cash in on them early and often.
A birdie at No. 2 moved her into a share of second place with Stricker, one shot behind Salay. A birdie at No. 4 moved Hoven into a tie for the lead with Salay. Bogeys on two of the next three holes stalled Hoven’s momentum, but she got it back with three birdies in a row starting at No. 8, where she made a 4-footer to tie Salay. After her chip-in for birdie at No. 9 gave her the lead, she added another birdie at No. 10 to match Salay and maintain her one-shot cushion.
“I was actually in the same spot during the first round,” Hoven said. “Over the green. Pin’s in the back. And then I actually hit it (Monday) to the front of the green, so I knew I had to be careful with that chip because I didn’t want to do what I did in the first round. Being there, that definitely helped me this round. Having it go in wasn’t expected at all. I was just trying to get a par.”
It would prove to be that kind of day for Hoven, who took the best of what Salay and Stricker — and, as it would turn out down the stretch, Nelson — could dish out and managed to rise to the occasion time and time again.
Stricker made her first birdie of the day at the par-3 11th to close within three shots of Hoven but gave it right back with a bogey at No. 12. When she made her next birdie at No. 16, Stricker was now within one shot of the lead and it would’ve been even had Hoven not make a 15-foot bogey putt on No. 13 after pushing her second shot to the par-5 behind a tree that she hit with her third.
“First of all, Elise played great; she was so steady all the way around,” said Stricker, the runner-up for the third year in a row after a T-3 finish in 2021. “She literally had one mishap hole (No. 13), really, and she made an unreal bogey from it. … I just could not put any pressure on her, really. I had a lot of chances on the front, I felt like, but I didn’t hit a lot of good putts. There were a lot of left-to-right putts — and I struggle with them to begin with — and I was under-reading them; I missed a lot of them low. They were not good putts. I was wishy-washy. … And I followed up both of my birdies with bogeys.
“I feel badly at the moment because I feel like I let a lot of them slip away.”
A key moment came after her second birdie at No. 16. Down by one in a group that played “ready golf” most of the day, Stricker let Hoven hit first on the 17th tee and watched her hit an 8-iron to about 10 feet. Stricker didn’t think she could get an 8-iron over the front bunker, went with a 7-iron and still left it short in the sand. She bladed her next shot just over the green and ran her next chip out to about eight feet and made the bogey putt, but now trailed by two.
“I was content going last there because it’s a hard hole and it’s hard to get a number you want to play to, because it’s uphill quite a bit, like 10 yards I was playing it, and yet it’s straight downwind,” Stricker said. “You kind of feel like it’s evening itself out. I really wish I wouldn’t have looked at the club she hit because she hit 8 and I knew it got back there because of the reaction everybody gave. But I didn’t feel I could get an 8 there and I was kind of clubbing to her all day. I wanted to hit 7 so bad because I didn’t feel it was an 8 so I end up hitting a 7 and I hit it short. I needed to hit a full 7 and I knew that when I got to the tee. Looking at the club she hit altered the shot I hit so that irritates me a little, that I put that much thought into all of that.”
Salay, meanwhile, was even par on her round after 11 holes and made a great bogey save at No. 12, but then the rising sophomore at the University of Wisconsin made three sloppy bogeys in a row starting at No. 14 to fade from contention. She finished with a 76 and finished in a tie for fourth with Loyola (Ill.) golfer Cassie Psuik of Greenfield, who eagled No. 18 after three straight bogeys to shoot 74.
“I think I held my own for most of the round; it slipped away from me a little at the end,” Salay said. “Learning from that, if I’m in this position again — and hopefully I will be — just fighting to the end. I think I got a little loose at the end. My mind was still in it, I just got a little loose with my swing.
“I did learn a lot about my game this week. I think my game showed a lot of improvement and a lot strengths in a lot of areas that have been weak all year.”
So, too, did Nelson, 15, a rising sophomore who birdied four of her final six holes to shoot 4-under 33 on the back nine at Meadowbrook and come within three shots of becoming the youngest Women’s State Open champion in its 28-year history.
“Coming off my best round (a 71) I’ve had in a competitive tournament (Tuesday), I really didn’t expect much; I wanted to just try to match it but I knew it was going to be a hard task,” said Nelson, who ultimately dug herself too big a hole with a first-round 81. “I’m definitely very happy. Looking back at my 81, it kind of hurts a little bit, but I’m proud of how I finished.”
But it was tough to top the pride Hoven felt as she posed for pictures with the State Women’s Open trophy.
“I really didn’t play well last summer at all, so I really wanted to play well in what could be my last summer of Wisconsin tournaments,” Hoven said. “I wanted to end it on a good note and to have all my friends, too? These people are my best friends and to have them here means the world.”
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A great deal of gratitude goes out to Sentry Insurance for their continued title sponsorship of the Wisconsin State Women’s Open. With their support along with supporting partners, The Suter Ward Group at Morgan Stanley and TaylorMade Golf, the Wisconsin PGA once again rolled out a terrific championship for all the players to enjoy.
The Wisconsin PGA would also like to express our appreciation to the staff and membership at Meadowbrook Country Club. The course was in great shape and the club provided all the support that was needed to conduct a great championship.