Some of the best teams in women’s college golf descended on
Athens, Ga. over the weekend for the 44th Annual Liz Murphey
Collegiate Classic at the University of Georgia Golf Course.
With a format that mirrors the NCAA Tournament with a day of
stroke-play qualifying followed by matches, the Liz Murphey turns into a dress
rehearsal for the real thing next month at Eugene Country Club in Eugene, Ore.
It would be like the top two men’s and women’s basketball
teams from all the power conferences getting together for a bracket-style
tournament in February just to give everybody a taste of what March Madness was
going to be like.
The final came down to Alabama, ranked No. 3 in one poll,
against UCLA, ranked as high as No. 6, with the Tide claiming a 3-2 victory over
the Bruins. UCLA was playing without one of its top players as Bronte Law, a
junior from England, teed it up in the ANA Inspiration, the first professional
major of the season.
Alabama was led all weekend by Emma Talley, a senior from
Princeton, Ky. Talley is the reigning NCAA individual champion and the 2013
U.S. Women’s Amateur champion. She capped her weekend with a 5 and 4 victory
over UCLA’s Hadas Libman, a junior from Israel, in the title match.
Alabama’s other wins in the final came from Lakareber Abe, a
sophomore from Angleton, Texas who
defeated Lydia Choi, a sophomore from Beverly Hills, Calif., 3 and 2,
and Nicole Morales, a sophomore from Salem, N.Y. who defeated Louise Ridderstrom,
a senior from Sweden, 2 and 1.
Lilia Vu, a freshman from Fountain Valley, Calif., had a
breakout weekend for UCLA. She grabbed one of the Bruins’ two points in the
final with a 3 and 2 victory over Janie Jackson, a senior from Huntsville, Ala.
UCLA’s other win in the final came from another standout freshman, Bethany Wu
of Diamond Bar, Calif. Wu downed Cheyenne Knight, a freshman from Aledo, Texas,
1-up.
Southern California, widely considered the No. 1 team in the
country, ended up in third-place match against host Georgia, another top-8
team. Like their cross-town rival UCLA (and they hooked up in the Liz Murphey
as well, more on that later), the Trojans had one of their top players, Karen
Chung, a junior from Livingston, N.J., playing in the ANA Inspiration.
But that didn’t prevent USC from handing a very talented Georgia
team a 4-1 setback and finishing third.
The Trojans’ winners were: Robynn Ree, a freshman from
Redondo Beach, Calif. who edged Jillian Hollis, a freshman from Rocky River,
Ohio, 1-up; Tiffany Chan, a junior from Hong Kong who defeated Bailey Tardy, a
freshman from Peachtree Corners, Ga., 1-up; Kyung Kim, a senior from Chandler,
Ariz. who topped Rinko Mitsunaga, a freshman from Roswell, Ga., 3 and 2; and
Gabriella Then, a junior from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. who rolled to a 7 and 5
victory over Isabella Skinner, a sophomore from Cumming, Ga.
Georgia’s lone win came from Harang Lee, a junior from Spain
who pulled out a 1-up victory over Amy Lee, a sophomore from Brea, Calif.
Regular followers of my blog are aware that I’m something of
a fan of Purdue since I covered former standout Aurora Kan when she was in high
school at Chichester, here in southeastern Pennsylvania. I’ve been following the Boilermakers ever since I started
this blog.
The Boilermakers got a nice confidence booster with a
tiebreaker victory over Big Ten rival Northwestern, ranked as high as No. 4, in
the fifth-place match at the Liz Murphey. Unlike the NCAA Tournament, at which
matches tied after 18 holes go to extra holes, matches tied at the end of 18
holes at the Liz Murphey result in a half-point for each team.
Purdue’s August Kim, a junior from St. Augustine, Fla., was
all square with Northwestern’s Stephanie Lau, a freshman from Fullerton,
Calif., which left the match deadlocked, 2.5-2.5.
The tiebreaker was total holes won, which went to the
Boilermakers, mostly due to the 4 and 3 victory for their senior Anna Appert
Lund of Sweden over Northwestern’s Kacie Komoto, a junior from Honolulu, Ha.
Purdue also got an outright victory from Covadonga SanJuan,
a freshman from Spain who downed Sarah Cho, a sophomore from San Diego, 2 and
1.
Northwestern was led all weekend by Suchaya Tangkamolprasert,
a senior from Thailand who went 3-0 in her matches. She edged Linn Andersson,
a sophomore from Sweden, 2-up. The Wildcats’ other outright win came from
Hannah Kim, a sophomore from Chula Vista, Calif. who was the Big Ten Player of
the Year as a freshman a year ago. Kim downed Marta Martin, a sophomore from
Spain, 2 and 1.
Purdue fell to the host Bulldogs, 3.5-1.5, in Saturday
morning’s Red Bracket quarterfinals before bouncing back with a 5-0 sweep of
Denver that earned the Boilermakers a spot in the fifth-place match. Purdue’s
lone outright win against Georgia came from August Kim, who downed Skinner, 5
and 4.
Just perusing the results, there was no shortage of drama in
Saturday’s play.
For instance, UCLA and USC met in the Red Bracket
semifinals, a match that probably should be played at Rivieria Country Club, but
there the cross-town rivals were, far from home, going at it at the 6,307-yard,
par-72 University of Georgia Golf Course. It was pretty much a fair fight with
each team having lost a top player to the ANA Inspiration, the Bruins’ Law and
the Trojans’ Chung.
The Bruins got their second tiebreaker win of the day after
battling USC to a 2.5-2.5 draw. Vu, the freshman, piled up a 6 and 5 victory
over Chan. That became crucial when UCLA’s Ridderstrom birdied the 18th
hole to draw even with Then.
One of the more intriguing matches of the UCLA-USC showdown
was the battle of the freshmen as the Trojans’ Ree edged the Bruins’ Wu, 2 and
1.
Another big win by Vu, an 8 and 7 victory over Kent State’s
Taylor Kim, a senior from Canada, again factored into a tiebreaker win in the
Red Division quarterfinals when the Bruins and the Golden Flashes battled to a
2.5-2.5 draw.
But maybe the individual match that most caught my eye was the one
between Alabama’s Talley and Georgia’s Tardy in a Red Division semifinal
Saturday afternoon, an eventual 3.5-1.5 victory for the Crimson Tide.
So on a Saturday afternoon in early April you could watch a match
between a member of the United States’ winning 2014 Curtis Cup team in Talley
taking on a member of the 2016 United States Curtis Cup team in Tardy going
head to head.
Talley would take the match, 3 and 2, so chalk one up for
the most recent U.S. Curtis Cup team against the one that will take on Great
Britain & Ireland in Ireland in June.
As the 2015-16 college women’s golf scene hits the
homestretch, the Liz Murphey provided some insight into what a battle it will
be in Eugene next month.
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