By Rich Addicks
It will be hard to forget this past season.
In early March, Dorsey got off to a great start in her first event of the year at the Women’s All Pro Tour (WAPT) event in Alexandria, LA with a tie for 14th (71-71-74-71-287). And then it all came to a screeching halt. Covid-19 quickly changed everything.
For the next three months, the only competition Dorsey could find was playing for small change with the mini-tour and PGA pros at her home course in St. Simons, GA. Finally in June, WAPT was up and running, but it wouldn’t be until late July (almost five months after shutting down) that the Symetra Tour got going with a new way of doing business.
Masks. Covid tests. Spitting into tubes. Hand sanitizer. Avoiding others. It was a new reality for everyone. In an attempt to create her own bubble of safety, Dorsey and I paired up, crisscrossing the country in our 25-foot Airstream hoping to avoid potential infection. No more hotels, host housing, or eating out. Amazingly, it worked, especially when you consider 16,000-plus miles were driven through some of the hardest hit states. We were lucky.
Once back on the road, Dorsey’s first event was the Texas Women’s Open at the famed Old American Country Club in Frisco, TX, which hosts an LPGA event every year. Making the cut and finishing T24th on a very challenging course was promising, but it took the next few WAPT events for her to find her form. By late June in Bella Vista, AR she finished tied for 6th (71-71-71-73-286).
By July, the Symetra Tour became the focus. Many events were cancelled for the season, but Dorsey was still able to play in four events that took her from Battle Creek, MI to Mesa, AZ to Beaumont, CA to South Bend, IN., with a stop at home in Big Sky…a total of 5,400 miles! Not ideal, but symbolic of her season. In Mesa and Beaumont, the thermometer was boiling, easily getting above 100 degrees daily. And in Mesa, her mandatory Covid test was lost on its way to the lab, causing quite a bit of stress and frustration, not knowing if she’d be able to compete that week. Only to be repeated again a month later in South Bend. More symbolism for the year, but in the end it all worked out.
Of those four Symetra events, Dorsey made the cut twice, which included her best Symetra finish to date, a T29th in South Bend with a score of 77-71-70-281 (+2) at the Blackthorn Golf Club in early September.
As her season came to a close in October, she finished strong in her two remaining WAPT events with a T9 at the Crown Colony Country Club in Lufkin, TX and third-place finish in Marksville, LA at the Tamahka Trails Golf Club.
Overall, Dorsey would tell you all parts of her game saw improvements in 2020 and she looks forward to what hopefully will be a more normal year in 2021. We all hope for that too. Stay tuned!