2018 LIZ JANANGELO CARON PLAYER OF THE YEAR JEN HOLLAND
STILL HEAD OF THE CLASS
Jen Holland makes teaching her priority, plays when school’s out and yet
continues to lead a class of strong Connecticut Amateurs. In 2018
Holland made match play in two national USGA championships
E
ach June, Jen Holland takes out
her golf game the way some people
take out their boat. She removes the
barnacles from her short game, revs
up the swing she’s had since she was about
7, and motors off to a string of tournaments.
“Golf is my summer hobby,” says the Middle-
fi eld elementary school teacher. “June, July,
August, mostly. Th is year it went a little later
with USGA events.”
Oh, those. For the fourth consecutive
time she’s tried, Holland qualified for, and
advanced to match play in the U.S. Senior
Women’s Amateur, this year at Orchid
Island Golf & Beach Club in Florida. She
also made the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Holland qualified for her second national championship of the season in September
Championship in St. Louis, where she also at Silvermine Golf Club in Norwalk. Friends Debbie Johnson and Ellie Large did, too.
advanced to match play and eventually the
round of 32. Those two events, and victo-
ries at the Southern New England Women’s
“I guess I hit it a little
Golf Association (SNEWGA) Championship
and Senior Championship, helped her win
her second consecutive Liz Janangelo Caron longer than most my age,” Player of the Year title. She shot 67 three
times this year, 64 once, a breakthrough, she
says Holland. “But I don’t says.
Not that she had that in mind when she
removed her game from dry-dock at the
beginning of the summer. “The goals I set have any tremendous
are mostly which events to play. If I set
others, it’s a low bar. Expectations can get
strengths. I just don’t let distracting.”
In an age when some competitive golfers
spend every waking month, week and day on
their games, Holland’s a throwback. Her job, things bother me.”
teaching physical education to kindergarten-
ers to fourth graders, and offi ciating at high
school fi eld hockey and lacrosse games, is the
priority. In the summer, when some might
want to escape the little ones for couple of
months of peace, she runs a golf camp for
them at Lyman Orchards Golf Course. One of
her students, 20 years ago, was Dick Tettelbach Player of the Year Ben Conroy.
“I think I actually have the best job in the school, teaching phys ed to these kids,” says Holland, who thanks Regional School
District 13 for allowing her to participate in the USGA events.” Her friend and sometimes rival Debbie Johnson thinks Jen’s cool ap-
proach has a lot to do with her success. “She is a really level-headed player,” says Johnson. “She never gets too high, never gets too low.” Th e
matter-of-fact approach has not changed since she was the fi rst girl to play on the boy’s Little League team. She was the shortstop. “It wasn’t
a big thing,” she says. “I just wanted to play baseball.”
Fearlessness is her game. “I hit it a little longer than the average woman my age,” she says. “But I don’t have any tremendous
strengths. I just don’t get bothered by being in a bunker or in the rough. I’m able to dismiss bad holes.”
For a woman with a perfect golf temperament and a love of teaching, what about professional golf?
“In the early ‘90s I called the LPGA and asked about becoming a teaching pro. But I told them, ‘I really love my job.’ They
said, ‘Well, you can do both.’ But I thought, you know, I also like to play golf in the summer.” For Jen Holland, golf, like boat-
ing, has a season.
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