Rohanna closes unusual season on upbeat note
Rachel Rohanna has putter in hand during the season-ending Symetra Tour Championship in North Carolina. Rohanna finished tied for 29th with a four-day score of 8-over 296. (Photo by Ali Palma for the Symetra Tour)
Rachel Rohanna follows her tee shot during the Mission Inn Resort and Club Championship presented by IOA in mid-October. Rohanna finished tied for 12th place with a score of 1-under 218. (Photo by Ali Palma for the Symetra Tour)
The Symetra Golf Tour was just getting underway when the coronavirus shut down the country.
The season-opening event, Florida’s Natural Charity Classic in Winter Haven, Fla., finished on March 8, and then things around the United States starting shutting down around St. Patrick’s Day. Rachel Rohanna finished tied for 30th place with a three-day total of 6-over 222.
The tour resumed in July and managed to fit in nine more tournaments, closing with the Tour Championship in North Carolina last week.
“Everyone was happy to have a season,” said Rohanna. “It was just tough. Well, we at least have this.
“Purses were cut down at the last minute. But, I’m a very grateful for the tournament sponsors.”
Golfers were subject to testing and all the other precautions carried out by other professional sports.
“We had testing every week. After the test, we stayed in a bubble, in a sense,” explained Rohanna. “We weren’t allowed to dine out. Pick up your food and go back to the hotel.
“The Tour did a great job of contact tracing. They helped out players who were stuck and had to quarantine. I had no issues traveling from state to state. The Tour worked with governments that allowed us to travel.
“I wouldn’t want to be in their (the Tour’s) situation.”
She added, “I’m happy no one got super sick out of it.”
Rohanna said she actually preferred flying to driving to the events.
“Flying was much safer than driving,” she said. “The rest stations, the gas stations, I felt airplanes were much safer. You felt cleaner.”
Rohanna managed nine starts on the Symetra Tour and one on the LPGA Tour, the Marathon LPGA Classic by Dana, in the first weekend of August. The Waynesburg Central graduate made the cut in six of the Symetra events and finished 49th on the earnings list with $9,418.
Her best finish was T-12 in the Mission Inn Resort & Club Championship presented by Insurance Office of America, in Howey-In-The-Hills, Florida. Rohanna had a three-round total of 1-under 219 and brought home $2,210 for her efforts.
She tied in 32nd place in the Carolina Golf Classic in Pinehurst, North Carolina, with 11-over 299. Rohanna finished with 3-under 210 for a tie in 30th place at the IOA Golf Classic in Longwood, Florida, and shot 1-under 215 in the Firekeepers Casino Hotel Championship in Battle Creek, Michigan, the first tournament back, for a tie in 28th place.
Rohanna felt she played better than her scores indicated.
“It was a frustrating year. It was an unofficial year, so I wanted to try different things,” said Rohanna. “It was frustrating, playing better than I was scoring.”
Rohanna continued, saying, “I’m better than I was three, five years ago. Every tournament was something different. Most of the time it was my tee shots. I was not getting the ball in play.
“I changed my driver (early in the season). I was swinging too hard and not getting the ball out there. I missed left and right. It put a lot of pressure on my short game. I missed a lot of greens.”
Rohanna said she started rolling in the final month of the season.
“The last month, I was hitting a lot of fairways and greens, and was making the putts,” said Rohanna. “The last couple weeks, if anything was off it was my wedges. That’s unusual for me.”
Her last round of the abbreviated season was her best with a 3-under 69 in the Symetra Tour Championship, including three birdies and an eagle in the final nine holes for a 5-under 31.
“It was good to end the season on the note I did on the last nine holes,” said Rohanna.
She said course layouts in the final events didn’t allow for many low-par rounds. Rohanna made the cut in the Tour Championship right at the line with a score of 8-over.
“The scores were so high in the last three events. The Mission Inn was a brand new event and they weren’t sure on how tough to make the course,” said Rohanna. “The last two events, the pin placements were so hard.
“But, it’s nice to play difficult courses in tough conditions. I feel I have an advantage with my distance off the tee.”
Another effect the pandemic had on the golf season was the lack of fans.
“That was weird, especially in the Marathon Classic (in Ohio). There’s one par-3 with stands that wrapped around the green. We said ‘Where was that trap?’ It was covered by the bleachers,” said Rohanna, adding, “You feed off the energy (from the gallery).”
Rohanna returns to a hopeful 2021 season with the same status she had entering 2020.
“Basically, I start where I was at the beginning of the year. I have full status on the Symetra Tour,” said Rohanna. “The top five players (on the Symetra Tour) got cards, but it’s a bad status. It’s a tweener, of sorts.”