Marissa Grillo stepped out of the rough to stand with some of the state's best junior golfers this summer.
The 15-year-old Avon resident is ranked fourth in the Connecticut Section PGA Junior Golf Tour and will compete against the Tour's top 20 girls in the Jack Kelly Junior Tournament of Champions at the Fox Hopyard Golf Club in East Haddam this Sunday.
The Jack Kelly tournament wraps up a breakout year for Grillo. Her top-five showing is a dramatic improvement on her 15th-place finish on the Tour last year. This season also marked Grillo's first tournament win with a score of 78 at the 18-Hole Ranch Junior Open in Southwick, MA, in July. After placing second just once in her Tour career coming into the season, Grillo was a constant top competitor this summer with four second-place finishes.
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“This season has been rewarding,” Grillo said. “I was lucky enough to win and play well in several tournaments, unlike in previous years where I did not win and did not play as well.”
The long game has helped Grillo go far with her work on the 3-wood and hybrid clubs resulting in much lower scores. She shaved nearly eight strokes off her Tour average and increased her birdie total from 1 in the 2009-10 season to 13 this year.
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A strong showing at the Jack Kelly tournament will be another confidence booster for Grillo as she turns her attention to the Avon High School field hockey team this fall and then back to golf for the spring season with her school's girls golf team.
“I would like to finish with a good round at the Jack Kelly Tournament of Champions,” she said. “It means a lot to have placed high in the player standings.”
Growing up with golf
Grillo was first introduced to golf around the age of 4 when her father, Vinny, took her to hit balls at the range. By the time she was 9 years old, she would join her parents on the course.
With practice and a burgeoning natural talent for golf, Grillo sought competition with girls her age and joined the Connecticut Section PGA Junior Golf Tour at age 11.
The competitive play of the CT Junior PGA helped Grillo emerge as one of the top players for the Avon High girls golf team, earning medals at matches and shooting a respectable 96 at the 2011 CIAC Girl’s Golf State Championship this spring.
Grillo's steady growth is due to a rigorous training schedule that includes winter lessons, team and individual practice in the spring, and club time more than three or four times a week in the summer. Grillo said the satisfaction of improving her scores makes the sacrifice well worth it.
“The excitement of playing well and shooting your best score has kept me interested in golf,” she said.
She plans to keep growing her game in high school and on the Tour, with hope of playing golf in college and beyond.
