USGA Women's Team Championship gets underway today at Dalhousie

It will be a first for the state of Missouri and Dalhousie Golf Club when the USGA Women's Team Championship tees off today.

The 11th edition of the biennial tournament, which includes teams from 49 states and the District of Columbia, will be hosted in Missouri for the first time.

A total of 150 amateur golfers -- ranging in age from 13-year-old Jennifer Koga of Honolulu, Hawaii, to 69-year-old Katie Falk of Milwaukee, Wisconsin -- will be competing for three days at Dalhousie, which is hosting its first USGA event in the course's 14-year history.

The competition, which is comprised of three-woman teams, is one of 13 tournaments hosted annually by the USGA -- the most famous being the U.S. Open. Team scores in the Women's Team Championship are the combined totals of the two lowest players each day. The format is repeated for three rounds, with a total of six rounds accounting for the final team score.

Ellen Port takes notes after a put on hole 13 during a practice round of the 2015 USGA Women's Team Championship at Dalhousie Golf Club Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015. (Glenn Landberg)

For the first time, there will be a cut to 21 teams and ties after Friday's second round.

New Jersey is the defending champion, having won the title in 2013 at NCR Country Club in Kettering, Ohio.

Missouri captain Stephany Powell of Springfield, Missouri, has competed in four of the team championships, including a 26th-place finish in 2013, of which she served as a playing captain.

Powell, who is not playing this year, got her first look at Dalhousie this summer at a media event for the tournament.

"The first time I played it, it was like, 'Wow,' in a word," Powell said.

The facility has continued to impress her as Missouri takes its first swing at hosting the event.

"The last two that I've been to, and this one, Dalhousie has blown it off the chart, as far as the host families, the volunteers," Powell said. "I mean it's just incredible. If it weren't for Ann Dombrowski, it probably wouldn't be here. It's a great venue, and there should be a lot of good golf."

Powell, Missouri's captain since 2011, is expecting some of that good golf to come from her squad, comprised of Ellen Port of St. Louis, Catherine Dolan of Ballwin, Missouri, and Kayla Eckelkamp of Washington, Missouri.

Powell said the players were chosen based on a point system and her input.

"I need a steady player," Powell said. "It's so different from match play. In match play, you can have a 10, and it doesn't really matter. But you need somebody that can manage a golf course who is proven in a tough situation. And all three of these girls, I think they can get the job done."

Kayla Eckelkamp watches her shot on hole 13 during a practice round of the 2015 USGA Women's Team Championship at Dalhousie Golf Club Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015. (Glenn Landberg)

The 53-year-old Port is the decorated veteran of the group, with four U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur championships (1995, 1996, 2000, 2011), two U.S. Senior Women's Amateur championships (2012, 2013) and eight Missouri Women's Amateur championships among the accomplishments on her resume. The 2014 U.S. Curtis Cup captain and women's golf coach at Washington University will have two 25-year-olds as teammates in Dolan, who played at Missouri State, and Eckelkamp, who played for Maryville University.

Dolan was All-Missouri Valley Conference in each of her four years at Missouri State and was a member of Missouri's entry in the 2013 competition.

Eckelkamp, the Great Lakes Valley Conference Women's Golfer of the Year in 2012 at Maryville and Missouri Amateur runner-up in 2011 and 2015, is making her debut in the competition.

The team will have to contend with the likes of New Jersey, which won in 2013 and ended Georgia's streak of back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2011. While New Jersey returns team captain Tara Fleming, it will have to contend with a strong Georgia team that includes Emilie Meason, a four-time All American at the University of Georgia, and Margaret Shirley, the reigning U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur Champion.

"You'll have your Tennesssees, your Georgias, your New Jersey, but you've got your Missouri," Powell said. "I will say this, I think Missouri will have its highest finish ever in this championship."

To do that, Missouri will have to do better than its tie for 11th in 2007.

Port was a member of that team and is among seven USGA individual champions in the field.

The field, which does not include current college players -- they are ineligible -- is loaded with players who have won state amateur titles and many who had successful college careers.

The par-72 course, which was ranked No. 135 in the United States by Golfweek earlier this year, has drawn rave reviews in hosting previous tournaments, which included four AJGA events where it twice was honored with the organization's tournament of the year.

Dalhousie general manager of golf operations Bill Morrow said 100 volunteers have been recruited to help daily.

And while the course has held events with international fields, Morrow said this event will be the most inclusive as far as U.S. states represented.

"We have teams from all the states, and they go back and talk to all their people. And it's good for Cape," Morrow said. "We've filled a lot of hotels. Thirty-five rules officials, a lot of players brought state captains. There's well over 200 people."

Players began arriving in town Monday and have played practice rounds the last two days. There's been social time, too, with a banquet Tuesday night at the Show Me Center and a reception at the clubhouse Wednesday.

"It's great social-wise, but the golf will be so competitive," Powell said. "It will be electric out there."

Tap-ins

• New Jersey's Flemming, 48, will be joined by 15-year-old Ami Gianchandani and 50-year-old Adrienne MacLean, a former Stanford golfer married to former NHL player John MacLean, who won the 1995 Stanley Cup title while with the New Jersey Devils. In winning the title in 2013, Fleming teamed with high schoolers Alice Chen and Cindy Ha, who both have moved on to play collegiately.
• The average age of the competitors is 34.02 years of age.
• Delaware will field the youngest team, with its three players having a combined age of 40.
• Illinois has the oldest team in the field, with a combined players age of 163.
• Cissye Gallagher of Mississippi is a former LPGA professional who played at LSU under her maiden name of Meeks. She is the reigning Mississippi State Amateur Champion, her 12th after winning her first in 1986.
• North Carolina's Courtney Kim weighted just 1 pound 10 1/2 ounces at birth. The 25-year-old helped Alabama to the 2012 NCAA Women's Golf Championship.
• Wisconsin's Falk won the Women's Western Amateur in 1973. On the way to the title, she dealt a semifinal loss to LPGA great Nancy Lopez.
• California's Caryn Wilson is among two women -- Althea Gibson is the other -- to compete in the U.S. Open in both golf and tennis. She was a three-time All-American in tennis at Stanford, helping the Cardinal tot the national title in 1982.