Tag: Latanna Stone

LSU’s Latanna Stone wins Orlando International Women’s Amateur to end winter break

LSU sophomore Latanna Stone won in her debut in the event, and now heads back to school looking for another win.

Every time Latanna Stone goes back to campus at LSU, it seems a little better. Next week, she’ll do the drill again – and just like a year ago, she’ll be fresh off a tournament title.

Stone keeps her golf goals on a Google Doc, like the rest of her Tiger teammates. At the top of the list? Win a college title – or two or three. She hasn’t checked that box yet, but she’s checking off other titles as she goes.

The LSU sophomore won the Orlando Women’s International Amateur on Tuesday in her first appearance in the event. Stone battled wind and intermittent rain to post a final-round 73 at Orange County National’s Panther Lakes course. Her 5-under total was good for a one-shot win over Virginia’s Haeley Wotnosky.

“I was hitting the ball really well this week,” Stone said. “A lot of my putts fell in on the first round and I was sticking everything. I was playing really solid the first round and then the second and third round, I was just skimming a lot of putts. They were barely about to go in and some tough breaks. I really can’t complain because it was playing a little tough out there.”

Scores: Orlando International Women’s Amateur

This time of year, Stone normally is teeing it up in the Harder Hall Women’s Invitational, a long-running women’s amateur event in Sebring, Florida with a distinguished list of winners. Stone, having competed in the event since she was just a kid, won it last year.

Having just represented the U.S. in the Arnold Palmer Cup, a co-ed Ryder Cup-style match for college players, before Christmas, Stone knew it would be too much to tee it up at the Harder Hall four days later and the Orlando event after that.

“This was kind of nice,” she said of the new event.

Stone played in all three of LSU’s SEC-only starts in the fall and finished fifth at the Blessings Intercollegiate. She has risen to No. 208 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. College golf suits her, but she still craves a title on that stage.

“I think that college golf has definitely unlocked an aggressive side to me,” she said. “Just because you’re there with your team and it really hypes you up. It’s so different from being solo, junior golf. It’s just so different.”

Stone references a competitive wedge game at LSU’s facilities that involves hitting different wedge shots to concrete “pods” or targets with her teammates. But consistency is where she really feels she has an edge.

“Being consistent is really important,” Stone said. “I feel like if you’re consistent and you don’t make a lot of mistakes, you can really outplay the people that you’re playing against too in a sense.”

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Latanna Stone wins Harder Hall, a storied event with an uncertain future

When Latanna Stone signed her name to a tournament towel listing every champion since 1956, one had to wonder if she’d be the last addition.

SEBRING, Fla. – The beauty of the Harder Hall Invitational is that nothing changes. Oh sure, 50 years ago it was swankier, as much a social scene as anything else in that grand pink hotel where the likes of Paul Newman and Steve McQueen stayed. But in recent decades, it has been a bastion of tradition. Both a look into the future and a step back in time.

One could field a Solheim Cup team out of the winner’s list – Natalie Gulbis, Cristie Kerr, Emilee Klein, Morgan Pressel, Brittany Lincicome, Stacy Lewis, Nelly Korda. The Jutanugarn sisters played here. The Wongluekiets, too.

JoAnne Carner won the Harder Hall in 1968. Carol Semple Thompson swept the title from 1990-1992.

Harder Hall Women’s Invitational: Leaderboard

When 18-year-old Latanna Stone signed her name to the bottom of the tournament’s towel, which listed every champion since 1956, one had to wonder if she’d be the last addition.

After a 65-year run, the future of the Harder Hall is uncertain.

The tournament committee, which includes Thompson, decided to disband after Sunday’s final round. Two rules officials who have been with the event for nearly two decades, Fayann and Jan Kikta, aren’t coming back. The pair received a warm ovation during the awards ceremony.

Course owner Jason Laman said he would sit down with his team in the coming weeks and evaluate whether or not they will run the tournament themselves.

“I have a feeling we’re going to set a date next week and proceed to try to run this,” Laman said by phone.

There could come a time, he said, when the golf course gives way to development. But right now, Laman said, “our first choice is golf.”

There’s been talk over the past year about moving the tournament to a different venue and changing the name. Perhaps the FSGA would take over like it did with the International Four-Ball, another storied event on the Florida Orange Blossom Circuit.

But it’s Laman’s event, and the ball is in his court.

Thompson first played in the Harder Hall 50 years ago. Her mother played in it before that. Back then everyone stayed at the grand hotel next to the course and ate on the American Plan, meaning meals were included. There was a variety show too. Players got up and danced, sang, told jokes.

Thompson remembers putting on a skit with Alice Dye about the kids who’d come down to sunny Florida in their short shorts only to be shocked by near-freezing temperatures.

Blankets and hand warmers are mainstays at the Harder Hall, where south Florida native Jaye Marie Green once withdrew out of fear of frost bite.

“It’s not the Harder Hall if it’s not freezing,” said tournament chair Taffy Brower. “At least one day anyway.”

This was an emotional week for Brower, who has been coming to Sebring for golf since 1978. The relationships here, said the 75-year-old Brower, are golden. She wants the younger generations to appreciate that golf doesn’t have to end if you don’t make it as a pro. Brower won the Florida State match play title four times and the stroke play title twice. She won the Women’s Southern Amateur and Women’s Southern Senior Amateur in the same year. She won the Harder Hall senior division (“Forever Forty-Nine”) eight times.

She wants future generations to keep playing golf until they’re old enough to talk about their grandkids, like many of the women who come to the Harder Hall each year.

Brower won’t chair the event next year, but she hopes to play.

Four LSU players were in the field this week, including Kendall Griffin, who grew up seven minutes from Harder Hall and first played in the event at age 10. She met Lexi Thompson, then 14, that year and they became fast friends.

A 10-year-old Kendall Griffin, left, with Lexi Thompson at a past Harder Hall. (Photo submitted)

This week Griffin hosted three of her teammates, including Stone, during the tournament and battled them into the weekend. Stone pulled away late on Sunday to edge teammate Alden Wallace, who wore a New Orleans Saints jersey, by four strokes at 291. Griffin, who admitted to putting extra pressure on herself after hearing that the event might not return, finished alone in third, eight shots back.

“It would be tough to see it leave,” said Griffin. “I have had a lot of chances.”
When Stone debuted in the championship at age 10, she remembers hoping that she could carry the ditch that runs across the first hole. Now she’s grown up and the one to beat, reaching par 5s in two.

“It’s so crazy now that I’ve actually won it,” Stone said.

The field, in both size and strength, has diminished in recent years. The palatial Harder Hall hotel remains vacant, with a large “no trespassing” sign out front. Laman wishes he had more resources to put into the course and clubhouse.

But for those who have been coming here year after year, the charm of the place remains. The tradition remains. Better than any resolution, it’s the way hundreds of elite women amateur golfers have started the new year for decades.

“I hope it does work out,” said Laman.

Everyone does.