Local Golfer Meaghan Francella Defeats Golf Great Annika Sorenstam

– By Melanie Cane –

To be the best, you have to beat the best, and that’s exactly what 24-year-old School of the Holy Child graduate Meaghan Francella did Monday, March 12, at the MasterCard Classic in Mexico.

In a stunning upset, Francella edged Annika Sorenstam in a playoff to win her first LPGA tournament. It was only a year earlier that Francella had won her first tournament on the Futures Tour in Lakeland, Fla.

Although Francella wasn’t born with a golf club in her hand, she may as well have been as her father cut one of his down to size and gave it to her for her second birthday.

At first, she hit golf balls in her backyard under her parent’s tutelage, but by age four, she started hitting them over the fence. Her parents then started taking her – with balls, tees and club in hand – up the street to the field at Port Chester High School. There, her parents set up ten tees and then spent the afternoon retrieving her balls. Shortly thereafter, her father began taking her to the driving range every Sunday afternoon. “She’d go through basket after basket of balls as her appetite for golf was insatiable,” said her mother, Denise Francella, who is a physical education teacher at Rye Country Day School.

At age 12, Francella began golf lessons at Willow Ridge Golf Club, as well as helping out in the pro shop. Two years later, she hooked up with Tom Patri, the director of instruction at Westchester Country Club, who took her under his wing. Patri later served as caddy for Francella at the MasterCard Tournament. To help pay for her lessons and in exchange for being allowed to play and practice on the par 3 course, Francella worked in the pro shop under John Kennedy. She took lessons and worked at WCC all through high school, while playing on the golf team (which started in her junior year) and the varsity basketball team.

In September of 2000, Francella went to college (University of Memphis for two years and then University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) on a full golf scholarship, where she helped propel her team to its first-ever All American title. During her third year of college, Meaghan faced adversity with the death of her beloved grandfather in the summer of 2002, the three-month-long grave illness of her father who underwent a liver transplant early in 2003, and the death of her grandmother in the spring of 2003. Meaghan traveled back and forth from college to Westchester to be with her grandfather, then her father, and then her grandmother, but despite these traumas and interruptions in her golf and school schedule, she managed to keep up with her studies as well as her golf game. “I think dealing with these tragedies helped make her a stronger person,” said her mother.

After graduating with a degree in communications in May 2005 from UNC, Meaghan went on the Futures Tour, and by September 2006, she had earned enough money to qualify for the LGPA tournaments. However, qualifying to play in the LGPA and being able to afford it are two different stories, so in November of 2006, friends of the family organized a fundraising event where they raised $34,000 to help her pay expenses. The Port Chester native’s fan base extends to Rye as well, where her father’s brother, “Uncle Caggy” (Anthony Francella), lives and owns Rye Art Gallery and Framing.