Junior Champ Ami Gianchandani Leads N.j.to 21st Place U.S. State Team Event

NJSGA Girls Junior champion Ami Gianchandani of Short Hills was the top player for New Jersey in the USGA Women's State Team Championship Dalhousie Golf Club in Cape Girardeau, Mo., that finished on Saturday, Sept. 12.

Gianchandani fired a round of 1-over-par 73 on Friday, Sept. 11, to go with her opening round 75. She added an 84 for a 232 total on Saturday as defending champion New Jersey finsihed No. 21 in the 50-team field with 468 strokes. Georgia won with 436 strokes.

Team captain Tara Fleming of Jersey City, who carded a 2-over-par 74 in the first round, added a second-round 81 amd a third-round 81 for a 236 total. New Jersey, sponsored by the NJSGA, totaled 149 strokes over the first 18 holes when it was in a tie for ninth place following the opening 18 holes

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Veteran Adrienne MacLean of Basking Ridge carded rounds of 84-84-84 for a 252 total. Only the top two scores count toward the team standings.

“After our struggles to get to the championship, flight delays, lost baggage and rescheduling practice round tee times - we settled in. We were so pleased for our Top 10 placement after Day 1,” Fleming said. “We all expected the greens to be a bit quicker and had some distance control issues. We have identified things we could have done better and plan on capitalizing on them.”

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Tara Fleming of New Jersey National will once again serve as captain of the defending champion New Jersey squad that won the USGA Women’s State Team Championship in 2013 at NCR Country Club in Kettering, Ohio.

This year’s Women’s State Team Championship takes place Sept. 10-12 at Dalhousie Golf Club in Cape Girardeau, MO.

Fleming will captain a squad that includes this year's additions to the New Jersey State Team in veteran Basking Ridge resident Adrienne MacLean of Somerset Hills and high schooler Ami Gianchandani of Rock Spring, a Short Hills resident, winner of the NJSGA Junior Girls' Championship.

When New Jersey - sponsored by the NJSGA - won its first State Team Championship, high schoolers Alice Chen of Montgomery and Cindy Ha of Demarest combined with Fleming, a resident of Jersey City. Both Chen, at Furman University, and Ha, at Vanderbilt University, are enjoying outstanding collegiate careers. College players are ineligible to compete in the State Team Championship.

"We feel this is a strong representative team for New Jersey, capable of doing well at the U.S. State Team Championship," said Coleen Luker, chair of the NJSGA Women's Committee. "We really like the makeup of this team, with two mid-amateurs and one junior player."

“We’re going to play a practice round before we leave to get to know each other. This year, I won’t be the only who can drive us around out there,” Fleming joked. “I don’t want to change the strategy. I want us to stay loose and have a good time and play good golf.

“It’s not often you get to play in USGA events, so you have to appreciate them. You have to understand just how important it is to be part of it,” she said.

Fleming, a native of Canada, is a former LPGA Tour player. This year, she has competed in two USGA events, making the cut with Alicia Kapheim of Hopewell Valley in the first U.S. Women’s Four-Ball Championship, where the duo made the cut. In 2013, Fleming advanced to the Round of 16 in the USGA Women’s Mid-Amateur.

Last month, she won the second NJSGA Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship by 10 shots over Kapheim.

Fleming played seven years on the LPGA Tour from 1990 through 1996 and was reinstated as an amateur in 1999. She played golf at the University of New Mexico. A native of Houston, she is an Account Relationship Manager at AIG in New York.

Fleming, while playing at the University of New Mexico, played collegiately against MacLean (nee Gilmartin), who played golf at Stanford.

MacLean, a member of the New Jersey State Team in 2003, also played professionally, on the Futures Tour (forerunner to Symetra Tour). nad reached the finals of LPGA Tour School in 1989. This year, she won the Garden State Women’s Golf Association Goss Round-Robin. She qualified for the U.S. Four-Ball Championship, with Sue DeKalb, and also qualified for the U.S. Senior Amateur. In 2014, she was low gross winner of WMGA Better Ball Championship. She was WMGA Player of the Year in 2002 and 2003.

In 2010 for the Garden State Women’s Association, she was a member of Montclair's victorious 2010 Interdistrict Team, a member of Golf Illustrated team and a member of 2010 Griscom Cup. In 1991, she married NHL player John MacLean of the New Jersey Devils. Adrienne MacLean has also qualified for multiple U.S. Amateur and Mid-Amateur championships.

In May, both Fleming and McLean were members of the victorious WMGA 112th Griscom Cup team.

Fleming’s former tour caddy, Rick Kropf, is a 30-year LPGA veteran who this year caddied for Kelly Shon at the Shoprite LPGA Classic in Atlantic City, will return to the State Team Championships to lend his expertise and yardage skills.

Gianchandani overcame a bogey on the final hole that cost her an outright victory, then rallied with a birdie in a one-hole playoff on the same hole to win the 61st NJSGA Junior Girls' Championship on Bella Vista Country Club in Marlboro on July 8.

Gianchandani, who turns 16 in December, is a rising sophomore at Pingry School and placed second in June at the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Girls Tournament of Champions which is sponsored by the NJSGA.

Chen’s stellar play led New Jersey to victory in 2013. Chen's three round scores of 72-67-75 (-6) were good enough to share individual honors with Bryana Nguyen of Maryland. Ha ended up finishing T29 in the individual portion (79-81-75) but her final round 75 is what helped seal the triumph for New Jersey, which finished 8-over par (446) total for the championship to defeat Florida by three strokes.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico may enter teams of three players. Eighteen holes of stroke play are scheduled for September 8-10, with the two lowest of the three individual scores counting as the team’s score for each day’s round. The team with the lowest aggregate score through 54 holes will win the title.