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Familiar Names to Compete at Copper Rock Championship
Former Women’s State Am champ, Dalton and Utah PGA Pro, Sturgeon give local ties to Utah’s first Symetra Tour’s championship.
By Kurt Kragthorpe
When she joined the BYU women’s golf program as a non-scholarship player from North Carolina, Kendra Dalton was not a likely LPGA Tour prospect.
Here she is, though, closer to reaching that level than any former Cougar since Carrie Summerhays Roberts, now BYU’s coach, who qualified for the LPGA Tour nearly 20 years ago. Dalton is an established player on the Symetra Tour, which is staging the inaugural Copper Rock Championship this week.
The event is a homecoming for Dalton and Haley Sturgeon, a Dixie State University graduate who received a sponsor exemption to compete for the $200,000 purse Thursday through Saturday at Copper Rock Golf Club in Hurricane.
As the fourth of 20 tournaments in 2021, the Copper Rock Championship is another opportunity for Dalton to move up the money list. She’s 3 for 3 in making 36-hole cuts and, while her final rounds could be better, she likes the way she’s playing.
Dalton won consecutive tournaments on the Cactus Tour in Arizona in February, when some members of both the LPGA and Symetra Tours were preparing for their seasons. Those performances reflected the work she has done with Milo Lines, a former Utah Section PGA member who’s now teaching at Superstition Mountain GC in Arizona.
“My game’s really good and I’m excited to play the whole year and I feel good about moving on and getting (LPGA) status,” Dalton said.
That would require finishing in the top 10 on the Symetra Tour money list; Dalton is No. 27 through three events.
Read the full Fairways Media Photo Journal story here: https://tinyurl.com/zkxtfb6d