UD three-peat at Lady Blue Hen Invitational
October 30, 2026
The University of Delaware women’s golf team earned a three-peat win at the 13th Lady Blue Hen Invitational Oct. 25 at Rehoboth Beach Country Club. The team’s five players combined for a five-stroke win in UD’s third-straight triumph and fourth total victory at its “home” tournament.
Dartmouth and Harvard tied for second in the team category, while Vanessa Zhang of Harvard won the individual championship with a 3-under par performance over the 54 holes. Hunji Kim and Mary Grace Dunigan of the University of Delaware tied with Juliet Oh of Penn and Marta Aguilar of Seton Hall for second place.
Rudy Blancke managed the dozens of volunteers needed to run the event. “We had 69 positions needed for spotters and scorers,” he said, filled by 55 volunteers, several of whom did double shifts or more to meet the need.
As before, many volunteers came from the RBCC membership. Blancke said the fact that Sea Witch Weekend took place the same weekend meant that he had to reach out to others to fill the spots. “We had a bunch of volunteers from our past AJGA tournaments come help us, along with others,” he said.
Dartmouth head coach Alex Kirk gave high praise to the host course and the volunteers. “This place just embraces the tournament. It’s a blessing. The staff is awesome. We’re so appreciative of the welcome we received and how well it’s run. It’s not that way at other places, I can tell you. I think it’s just part of the culture here.”
The order of finish in the team championship was as follows: 1) UD, 2) Dartmouth, 3) Harvard, 4) University of Pennsylvania, 5) Georgetown, 6) Quinnipiac University, 7) Seton Hall, T-8) Howard University and Youngstown State, 10) St. John’s University, and 11) Sacred Heart University.
Krueger goes west
Congratulations to Chris Krueger, the teaching pro at Kings Creek Country Club, for his performance in the 2026 Senior PGA Professional Championship, held at Superstition Mountain Golf & Country Club in Gold Canyon, Arizona.
Krueger tied for 39th in the four-round tournament, with his -2 overall score earning a check for over $3,000.
The top 35 spots earned the club pros a spot in the 2027 Senior PGA Championship in April in Bradenton, FL, which he missed by a single stroke.
Marie Birdie
When I interviewed Marie Birdie’s Ellen Krissman at the 2023 PGA Show she was only a few months into her new apparel business, but the signs of success were already there. The company’s emphasis on golf clothing for young girls and tweens hit the proverbial nerve, tapping a relatively neglected but nonetheless growing part of the golf market.
When we met again at the 2026 PGA Show, she was pleased that her target markets had expanded along with her business. “We have great stuff from age 5 to grandma. We came up with inclusive sizing to span three generations,” she said.
Marie Birdies’ Golden Skort line comes in women’s and girls’ sizes
The Golden Skort line is a good example. The skorts feature hidden side pockets and sell in both women’s and girls’ sizes.
“We’ve had so many high school and college coaches come by and say, ‘our uniforms are terrible, there’s just not a lot of options, we can’t find them. We can fit a college player now down to a size zero. This shows our range. They come in all colors of the rainbow. We have a collared shirt with a light, ribbed material which the girls love. We also do embroidery in-house now,” she said.
Krissman continued, “We also had feedback from parents. They said, ‘we need pants,’ so we came out with pants. ‘We want a vest,’ we came out with a vest. We have a sort of advisory board of our internal users, our ambassadors, and we test the new products. It’s really helped.”
“What we’ve seen is just that look on the girls’ faces when they come into a space that’s made for them, because golf had this sort of take it or leave it for girls. Now that we have an entire space that’s for them. We do a lot of pop-ups. We’ve had a pop-up at Pinehurst for about three years. It’s been phenomenal for us. The demand is definitely there,” she said. “We also sponsored an AJGA event in Las Vegas. We got a lot of feedback from it.”
“We’ve been able to respond,” Krissman said. “From 8 to 13 we understand that demographic, now 13 to 18 is a little bit more challenging, and then beyond 20 and 30 we came out this year with MB Women. Traditional sizing, five sizes beginning with extra small, and we tied it with our other lines. For golf, we re-designed the back pocket, because we heard from adults and college players, we want to make sure it’s big enough for the scorecard holder, so we have it large enough now.”
“In a foursome of women, they all want to be in the same outfit, but I like pants, I like the skirt, you can all use the collection. More collections are how we’ve been evolving,” Krissman said.