Colette Schmidt chips out of the sand on hole number three during the opening round at the New Hampshire Golf Association state amateur championship at Eastman golf links in Grantham on Monday morning. (Photo by Ben DeFlorio)
Colette Schmidt chips out of the sand on hole number three during the opening round at the New Hampshire Golf Association state amateur championship at Eastman golf links in Grantham on Monday morning. (Photo by Ben DeFlorio)

Grantham — It’s almost time for Chelsea Sedlar to return to school. Until then, the former Bishop Guertin High golfer is hoping to take her competitors to school.

Bound for her junior season with the Sacred Heart University women’s golf team in a few weeks, Sedlar shot a 6-over-par 76 on Monday to assume the lead after the first day of the New Hampshire Women’s Golf Association amateur championship at Eastman Golf Links. Sedlar holds a two-shot lead on Canterbury Woods’ Beth Hamilton and Derryfield’s Tara Watt, the 2011 NHWGA champ, heading into today’s second round.

Sedlar’s round needed a back-nine boost. The Merrimack, N.H., native playing out Nashua Country Club double-bogeyed two of Eastman’s three par-fives on the front side, the second and eighth holes. With another par-five set for 9, Sedlar posted a birdie to turn things around.

She played the back nine at a 3-over clip, six pars matched against three bogeys. Sedlar shot a first-round 77 at Rye’s Abenaqui CC last year and trailed by three strokes before reeling off rounds of 70 and 72 to win her first women’s state am title.

When she’s not playing on the golf course, Sedlar has been spending the summer working on it as one of the New Hampshire Golf Association’s two USGA P.J. Boatwright interns.

Hamilton and Watt shot matching rounds of 78 on Monday. Hamilton also doubled a pair of front-side holes but rallied from there, albeit with a double on 17 that kept her out of a share of the lead. Watt, an assistant women’s golf coach at Southern New Hampshire University, birdied 9 — which despite being a par-five played to just 358 yards on Monday — and doubled the par-four 11th, leaving her with mixed feelings.

“Tee ball was terrible,” Watt posted on Twitter after the round. “Hit 3 fairways, 8 greens and 31 putts. Tied for second though.”

Keene’s Alice Manwaring is alone in third at 80, with 16-time champion Dana Harrity one further back at 81.

The Upper Valley contingent remained in touch with the lead through the first round. Former Lebanon High competitor Lisanne Schmidt-Foster, now playing out of Candia Woods, is tied for eighth at 83 in the return to her former home course. Schmidt had one of the better back nines of the day, a 5-over 38 that helped her overcome a pair of doubles on the front.

Lisanne’s younger sister, Alexandra Schmidt, shot 85, leaving her tied for 14th with a group that includes Hanover’s Betsy Knights. Hanover’s Amy Peters (88), Eastman’s Colette Schmidt (89) and the Country Club of New Hampshire’s Rowena Wilks (90) are all inside or near the top half of the field.