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Canon Cup special for duo

With college around the corner, Whitney Code teams up with her sister, Mallory, for the final time as a junior.

By FRANK PASTOR

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 3, 2001

TAMPA -- Whitney and Mallory Code will play together in a junior event for the last time when they compete in the AJGA Canon Cup on Aug. 6-9 at Biltmore Forest Country Club in Asheville, N.C.

Whitney, 18, will be a freshman at Florida in the fall. Mallory, a 16-year-old home-schooled student, will play as a junior at Chamberlain, which has won three consecutive state titles.

"I've had some really good experiences with junior golf," said Whitney, who has won five AJGA events. "I'm going to miss it in a way, but I also feel I'm ready to move on to collegiate golf and looking forward to that."

The Canon Cup pits 20 top juniors from east of the Mississippi River against 20 players from the west in a 54-hole match play format similar to the Ryder Cup.

The event features four-ball, foursomes, mixed foursomes and singles matches.

Past participants include PGA and LPGA Tour professionals Tiger Woods, Stewart Cink, Grace Park, Wendy Ward and Kelli Kuehne.

"This is always kind of my goal to get on the Canon Cup team," Whitney said. "It's always the highlight of my summers. There's definitely a lot of competition and stuff, but there's also a lot of team camaraderie. It's really a social event as well as golf."

The Codes are two of 10 Florida residents on the East squad.

Brittany Lincicome (Pinellas Park), Aimee Cho (Orlando), Ashley Hoagland (Palmetto), Kelly Husted (Sarasota), Lisa Tyler (Lighthouse Point), Chan Song Wongluekiet (Bradenton), Nicholas Thompson (Coral Springs) and James Vargas (Miami) also hail from the Sunshine State.

Fifteen of the 20 players on the West squad are from California or Texas.

Players were chosen based on a points system that took into account events played between July 1, 2000 and June 30, 2001.

The East leads the series 7-3-1 following last year's 27-23 victory at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan.

The Codes won five of their seven matches and halved another to help the East avenge a one-point loss in 1999.

"It was a lot of fun," Whitney said. "It was a lot of fun both years, but to win was special."

The Canon Cup will be Whitney's final junior event. She won her last AJGA individual event, the Shell World Golf Village Junior, July 23-26 in St. Augustine.

Mallory was eliminated from the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship on Wednesday in Wichita, Kan. She shot 2-over 144 during stroke-play qualifying Monday and Tuesday at Flint Hills National Golf Club before losing 1-up to Jerilyn White of Keizer, Ore., in the first round of match play.

Since Mallory will compete in junior events next summer, the Codes will have few chances to play together. They expect to play in a few amateur tournaments, including the Women's Amateur Qualifier.

"It was fun to play together on a team event," Whitney said. "We did that back in Dallas a couple of months ago in a two-person tournament (winning the Justin Leonard/Deloitte & Touche Junior Team Championship). Our games are compatible, so we enjoy teaming up."

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