Update on girls’ golf proposal
September 11, 2026
Delaware’s golf community is showing great support for adopting girls’ golf as a fall sports option throughout the state’s high schools.
This fall’s competition calendar expands significantly on last October’s statewide golf experience event held at St. Anne’s Golf Links in Middletown with over thirty young golfers, sponsored by the First Tee of Delaware and the Delaware Women’s Golf Association.
Scott Allen of First Tee and Lesley Corydon of DWGA obtained competition dates for this fall from several clubs, including Rehoboth Beach CC, Kings Creek CC, Ed Oliver GC, Frog Hollow GC, and Maple Dale CC. Keith Kendzierski, head golf coach for Sussex Academy and current head of the Delaware High School Golf Coaches Association, reached out to coaches and athletic directors throughout the state to recruit teams for the events.
The resulting golf tournament series begins in late September with six regional events followed by a statewide tournament in mid-October. Players from thirteen schools will compete in two-player scrambles.
Local club support goes even further. American Classic GC, Midway Par 3, and RBCC agreed to host the girls from Cape Henlopen High in practice sessions to help them prepare for the tournaments.
This is a great evolution from what I was able to create at St. Anne’s last fall with the help of First Tee Delaware and the DWGA.
The new tournaments continue the progress toward the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association’s eventual adoption of girls’ golf as a Level 1 program for the 2027-2028 school year.
The 25th anniversary of 9/11
I thought I should commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11 with an edited version of the column I wrote September 14, 2001:
I hope someday soon that I can talk about golf again with Walter Kristlibas and some of our mutual friends.
Right now, I can only pray for the chance.
As some readers know, I am a deputy attorney general in the Delaware Department of Justice. I represent the Secretary of the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT).
I have worked for several years with my counterparts in the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on the EZPass project.
Kristlibas works for the Port Authority, and he and I worked together on EZPass matters many times. Until September 11, his office was at One World Trade Center, New York City.
I last saw him at an EZPass meeting at the Trade Center on July 31. We met in the Port Authority conference room on the 63rd floor, along with over a dozen other participants.
The meeting was several hours long and went through the lunch period. The Port Authority folks thoughtfully provided a deli spread.
As usual, no one wanted to talk about EZPass during lunch. Golf was the primary topic.
I listened and laughed along as meeting participants swapped tales of golfing disasters. Some proudly described how they managed to keep their score around the magic 90 in their last Saturday round. Others hooted at their friends’ claims that their real handicaps were actually well over 20.
I kept the special security photo ID card given to me that morning for permission to reach the 63rd floor. It is an unsettling souvenir of a place that doesn’t exist anymore.
As soon as I heard of the attacks on the World Trade Center, my thoughts went out immediately to Kristlibas and my other Port Authority friends. There was no way I could reach them to find out how or if they made it out safely.
Then I thought of all the thousands of other Americans, with similar thoughts about the thousands of people they know who work or live in the Trade Center, along with the hundreds of victims caught in the hijacked airliners or buried under the Pentagon’s rubble.
The “six degrees of separation” that truly connect so many Americans together may not be fully appreciated by those not of this country. Whether the ties that bind us come from work, or family, or golf, these connections are among the reasons we will come together to react in strong, measured ways to this newest outrage.
Some good will come of this eventually, I’m sure.
It’s just an awful price to pay.
P.S. Walter survived 9/11, although several of his coworkers did not. He now lives in retirement in Florida.
Local club competition results
The Kings Creek CC 9-Hole LGA League played a Team Shamble Sept. 3, won by Darci Whitehead, Kathy Andrus, Joanne Yurik, and Jen Walker (blind draw).
Sara Cavendish, Kara Bourdreau, Carolyn Ortwein, and Walker took second. Kelly Sabol, Tracy Gordon, Sandy Singer, and Farah Englert finished third.
The Kings Creek CC 18-Hole LGA League played a modified Solheim Cup game Sept. 3, using better ball and alternate shot formats in both net and gross.
Jean Chlastawa and Ann Berry won the first flight net, with Lisa Lekawa and Lori Guitson in second. Lesley Corydon and Martha Jaxheimer took third. Dina McCullough and Shelly Conaway won first net for the second flight, with Ana Dittel and Lori Griggs tied with Sharon Denny and Arlyce Dubbin for second.
Marjorie Adis and Lisa Schofield won first place gross in the first flight, with Anne Farley and Sally McGovern taking first gross in the second flight.