Alabama comes out on top at Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic

   Some of the best teams in women’s college golf descended on Athens, Ga. over the weekend for the 44^th 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 18^th 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.