When it was announced that a new women’s amateur event, the
Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship, would be played for the first
time in 2019 with some fanfare by the people who run the other tournament held
at the Augusta National Golf Club, the Masters, last year, it was hailed as a
progressive step forward for the women’s game.
The only argument followers of the women’s game had with the
event was with the dates. The people who run the Masters chose April 4 to 6,
which would make it a natural lead-in to the first major men’s championship of
the year the following week.
Makes sense. With the considerable weight of the Masters
Tournament behind it and many of the college players who would make up a large
part of the field in the middle of their season, I’m sure the Masters people
figured the week before the Masters was as good a week as any.
And most of the top women’s amateur players have jumped at
the chance to play Augusta National in April. The 72-player field will play the
nearby Champions Retreat Golf Club the first two rounds after which the field
will be cut to the top 30. The survivors will then get their shot to play the
final round at the Alister MacKenzie gem that is so familiar to golf fans who
watch what is truly one of the great televised sports events year after year.
The only problem is that the first women’s professional
major championship each year, the ANA Inspiration, is that same week and that
event had traditionally invited some top amateur players to tee it up with
their likely future colleagues on the LPGA Tour at Mission Hills Country Club
in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Well, the ANA recently announced that four of the top 11
players in the latest Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), including Nos.
3, 4 & 5, have accepted its invitation to play in the California desert.
Not sure if UCLA sophomore Patty Tavatanakit, No. 3 in the
Women’s WAGR, Florida State freshman Frida Kinhult, No. 4 in the Women’s WAGR,
Stanford junior Albane Valenzuela, No. 5 in the Women’s WAGR, and Stanford
recruit Rachel Heck, No. 11 in the Women’s WAGR, turned down invitations to
play at Augusta, but it had to be a tough call if they did.
Valenzuela of Switzerland has a history at the ANA and
probably has developed some personal ties with the event. She made the cut and
played the weekend last year, finishing alone in 59th place.
Valenzuela also played the weekend at the U.S. Women’s Open at Shoal Creek just
after the college season was over, finishing 24th at 3-over 291.
Valenzuela is a wonderful player. She was the runnerup in
the U.S. Women’s Amateur at San Diego Country Club and in the European Ladies’
Amateur in her native Switzerland in 2017. Valenzuela has been a fixture in the
Stanford lineup, leading the Cardinal to the semifinals in the NCAA
Championship each of the last two springs.
Tavatanakit is a native of Thailand, but spent a lot of time
in Van Nuys, Calif. while playing a busy schedule in the summers as a junior
standout. She was at the head of a remarkably talented freshman class in
Division I golf in 2017-’18, winning the Pac-12 individual title and helping
the Bruins claim the conference team championship.
Even casual followers of the women’s game had to sit up and
take notice when Tavatanakit finished tied for fifth in the U.S. Women’s Open
at Shoal Creek, ending up at 2-under 286.
Kinhult of Sweden was a highly-touted recruit at Florida
State and she has not disappointed. Kinhult led Sweden to the European Ladies’
Team Championship while claiming individual medalist honors in qualifying last
summer. She has opened her Florida State career with five top-10 finishes,
including a win, in her first five tournaments.
Heck of Memphis, Tenn. was the 2017 AJGA Rolex Player of the
Year. She qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open at Trump National Golf Club in
Bedminster, N.J. that year as a 15-year-old and proceeded to make the cut,
finishing tied for 33rd at 2-over 290.
She made the cut in another LPGA major, the Evian
Championship in France, last fall, finishing in a tie for 44th at
2-over 286.
“I am so excited and I can’t wait to get to Rancho Mirage,”
Heck told the LPGA website. “Thanks so much to the ANA Inspiration Championship
Committee for awarding me this invite. This major has so much history and I am
honored to be following in the footsteps of my role models who also played in
the ANA Inspiration on amateur invites when they were starting out.
“It is such an amazing opportunity and pretty inspiring to
be playing among the world’s best professionals.”
Heck may have chosen the ANA Inspiration because there is an
AJGA tie-in with the event. The final amateur berth in the ANA Inspiration goes
to the winner of a 54-hole AJGA event the weekend before the ANA, the ANA
Junior Inspiration.
The final round of that event is played on the Dinah Short
Tournament Course – with apologies to the sponsor, but the LPGA major in the
California desert will always be the Dinah Shore to me -- with LPGA legends
playing alongside some of the youngsters.
The winner of last year’s ANA Junior Inspiration, Rose Zhang
of Irvine, Calif., will be back to defend her title. She is No. 1 in the Rolex
AJGA Rankings.
Zhang was the runnerup to fellow Californian Yealimi Noh in
the Girls Junior PGA Championship at the Kearney Hill Golf Links in Lexington,
Ky. last summer in defense of the title Zhang had won a year earlier. Zhang
shot the same 20-under figure that won her the title a year earlier, but Noh,
in the midst of a scorching stretch of golf, ran away with the title with a
ridiculous 24-under total.
There will be fewer amateur players in the ANA Inspiration
field this year than last year, although the event did attract four of the more
intriguing names to its event. Pretty sure all four will be playing in the big
leagues of women’s golf in the not-too-distant future.
Nobody who cares about women’s golf would complain about an
event like the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship coming onto the scene
because it will undoubtedly raise the profile of women’s golf, particularly the
amateur game.
There’s a ton of talented amateur women players out there.
Apparently enough that there will be top amateur players teeing it up in two different high-profile
events on the first weekend of April.
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