RDGA Women’s Championship Downey Memorial Returns to Stafford CC in 2019 - RDGA

The short par-4 18th hole at Stafford Country Club, above, will be sure to provide late-round drama during the 2019 RDGA Women’s Championships on August 4 and 5.

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When Stafford Country Club hosts the 2019 RDGA Women’s Championship Danielle E. Downey Memorial on August 4 and 5, the stage will be set for a celebration of local women’s golfing history – history in the potential for at least one past champion to capture an unprecedented fourth RDGA Women’s title, as well as a celebration of one of the area’s most celebrated women golf administrators over the past four decades.

This year’s RDGA Women’s Championship marks a return to the course which witnessed one of the greatest final-round performances in the nine-year history of the event – when Brook-Lea’s Jenna Hoecker posted a 7-under-par 65 en route to a win the 2014 RDGA Women’s Championship by an astounding 18 shots. That victory would also mark the first of three RDGA Women’s titles to date for Hoecker – including last year’s victory at Ridgemont – who comes into this year’s Championship riding a hot streak.

Stafford will also be the site of another celebration of local women’s golfing history when the Rochester District Golf Association presents Shirley Durham with the second annual “Leading The Way” award during the event’s closing ceremonies – an award created a year ago to honor an individual in the Rochester community who has worked tirelessly to grow the game of golf for women and men. Durham has been a fixture on the local golf scene for more than 40 years as a volunteer and administrator, as well as an accomplished golfer in her own right.

On the other hand, what is past is prologue – with a field that includes a number of younger-generation players, this year’s RDGA Women’s Championship at Stafford might just as easily represent a “changing of the guard,” celebrating the accomplishments of a first-time winner. That would also be a fitting tribute, in an event named for the late Danielle Downey, who dedicated her all-too-brief career to advancing opportunities in golf for junior girls.

A Colorful History

Stafford, of course, is no stranger to RDGA Major Championships, having hosted the RDGA District Championship John H. Ryan Jr. Memorial three times (most recently in 2014), the RDGA Match Play Championship three times, the RDGA Senior Championships (twice), the RDGA Junior Championships (in 1983) – as well as the 2014 RDGA Women’s Championship.

Beyond its’ championship resume, however, Stafford has a colorful history all its own.

In the early 1920’s, a small but prominent and influential group of businessmen from Batavia and LeRoy took the first major step towards fulfilling their vision of a first-class country club for Genesee County. After careful consideration, they acquired several acres of rolling farmland bordering Black Creek in the small hamlet of Stafford, deemed ideal for a first-rate 18-hole golf course. In short order, they brought the esteemed golf course designer, Walter J. Travis, to inspect the site and commissioned him to design a “second to none” course.

At the time, Travis was one of the most respected and sought-after golf course designers in the country. His reputation was based on his work at Ekwanok Country Club in Vermont, Garden City Golf Club on Long Island, Hollywood Golf Club in New Jersey, his three courses at Westchester Country Club, and others. Travis was no stranger in Western New York. He was widely acclaimed for his redesign of the Country Club of Buffalo course, enabling the club to host the 1912 U.S. Open Championship. Soon after, the Park Club of Buffalo enlisted him to design their new course in Orchard Park.

During the summer of 1921, Travis made several trips to Stafford from his home in Garden City, Long Island, in order to oversee the construction of the first nine holes (now played as the back nine). When the first nine holes were completed, Travis wrote the club, stating, “There are several superb holes, unsurpassed anywhere, and with not a single weak one in the whole bunch. All in all, I am proud of the whole thing—-.”

In October, 1921, during his first visit to Stafford, Rochester native and early golfing superstar Walter Hagen declared the course “second to none, and worthy of the interest of its members for years to come”. Subsequent visits by professionals such as Gene Sarazen, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, and Julie Inkster brought similar acclaim.

Over the years, there have been few alterations to the original Travis course. In the early 1930’s, minor renovations were completed under the direction of noted architects Robert Trent Jones and Stanley Thompson. A golf course master plan was developed in the late 1990’s in order to assure that improvements to the course adhered to the character of the classic Travis design. Implementation of the master plan began in 1999 with a complete bunker restoration and renovation.

Stafford has hosted numerous top-level golf tournaments through the years, including both Men’s and Women’s New York State Amateur Championships, the New York State Senior Men’s Championship, and the Rochester District Men’s and Women’s Championships. These events, and others, have established a reputation for the course that is a source of great pride for each Stafford Country Club member.

In the last RDGA major championship to be held at Stafford – the 2014 RDGA District Championship John H. Ryan Jr. Memorial – Oak Hill’s Trevor Sluman won the first of three consecutive District titles and Jenna Hoecker of Brook-Lea won the first of two RDGA Women’s Championship titles, setting the women’s course record at Stafford (a 65) along the way.

A favorite clubhouse activity for members on warm summer days is to relax on the covered patios with friends, food, and drink, while watching fellow golfers complete their rounds. Travis showed great foresight when he insisted that the clubhouse be located on the ridge overlooking the 18th hole.

Over eighty years later, Hagen’s pronouncement holds true. The founding members’ vision has been realized and carefully nurtured throughout the years. With the quiet beauty of its rural farmland setting, Stafford Country Club offers a rich and varied source of recreational and social pleasures for its members and their guests.

A view of the Stafford Country Club clubhouse – which has changed very little since this nearly 100-year-old photo was taken – which has hosted club functions, weddings tournaments and meetings since opening in 1921. (Stafford Country Club)

The History of a Championship

Between 2010 and 2016, the Rochester District Golf Association’s Women’s Championship was held each year as an extension of the Distict’s Women’s Golf Initiative – becoming an integral part of the RDGA’s efforts to provide the area’s best women golfers an opportunity to compete against other top players on some of the most storied venues in the Rochester area.

Played as a two-day, 36-hole, stroke play competition, the RDGA Women’s Championship was held each year concurrently with the RDGA Men’s District Championship, with competitors teeing off in separate flights during the final two rounds of the Men’s District Championship. The field was open to any women RDGA members with a USGA handicap index of 15.0 and under – and included those exempt from qualifying, such as past champions and/or the top-20 finishers from the the previous year’s championship.

In 2014, the RDGA Women’s Championship took on a new title, following the tragic death of 33-year-old Spencerport native Danielle Downey, who was killed in an auto accident near her alma mater at Auburn University in Alabama in January of that year, where she was Director of Golf and coach for the women’s golf team.

Having attained her dream of playing at the highest levels of women’s golf – as an amateur, Division I collegiate player and a member of the LPGA Tour – one of Downey’s life missions had been to support those young women who shared that dream of making golf their career. Recognizing those goals and other accomplishments – in life and in golf – the RDGA announced later that year that it was re-naming the annual Women’s District Championship in her honor as the RDGA Women’s Championship Danielle E. Downey Memorial.

In 2016, Jenna Hoecker of Brook-Lea Country Club earned her second Danielle E. Downey Memorial title, winning the RDGA Women’s Championship by 10 shots over past champion Kristin Powers at Ridgemont Country Club. Hoecker posted the low score of the 36-hole Championship – a 76 – in the final round to win the title with a 9-over-par 153 total.

As it turned out, Hoecker’s RDGA Women’s Championship title would be the final one played under the existing format. In 2017, the decision was made to suspend the event while seeking out alternatives for a premier championship format for top women amateurs in Rochester.

Early in 2018, the decision was made to incorporate the RDGA Women’s Championship into the popular RDGA Women’s Open event – in which the Championship division competitors will play 18 holes at the same site the day before the Women’s Open, then play the second 18 hole round at the same time as the Women’s Open. Picking right up where she left off two years earlier, Hoecker won her third RDGA Women’s Championship title in 2018, finishing five shots ahead of Kristen Bromley of Locust Hill.

So this year, when the 2019 RDGA Women’s Championship will be hosted by Stafford Country Club on August 4 and 5, chances are that history will be made once again.

This article was written by RDGA Communications Director Dave Eaton.