Duke will be the top seed when the NCAA Auburn Regional tees
off Monday at Saugahatchee Country Club in Opelika, Ala.
While the Blue Devils were preparing to make a run for a
national championship last week, two of their prized recruits grabbed a little
national championship of their own as Megan Furtney, an 18-year-old from Elgin,
Ill., and Erica Shepherd, also 18, from Greenwood, Ind. captured the title in
the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship held at Timuquana Country Club,
a Donald Ross classic in Jacksonville, Fla.
The U.S. Women’s Four-Ball was moved to the week following
the college conference championships and before the NCAA regionals tee off to
allow any college women who want to give it a shot a chance to play in the
event.
Katrina Prendergast and Ellen Secor of Colorado State did
just that a year ago at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, Calif. and they
were back in the field at Timuquana.
But the event has often been a jumping-off point for
youngsters making their first big splash in amateur golf. And that goes back to
the first U.S. Women’s Four-Ball in 2015 when a couple of high school juniors,
Radnor’s Brynn Walker and Council Rock North’s Madelein Herr, made a run to the
semifinals at Bandon Dunes.
Texas will be a top seed in the NCAA Norman Regional
beginning Monday and the Longhorns feature the 2016 U.S. Women’s Four-Ball
champions, Texans Kaitlyn Papp and Hailee Cooper, who claimed the title at
Streamsong.
In the case of Shepherd, it was not quite her first splash
on a national stage. The left-hander captured the 2017 U.S. Girls’ Junior
Championship at Boone Valley Golf Club in Augusta, Mo.
And that experience showed as Shepherd and Furtney jumped
out to a 2-up lead and never led by less than two holes in a 2 and 1 victory
over a couple of other talented teens, Jillian Bourdage, a 17-year-old from
Tamarac, Fla., and 16-year-old Casey Weidenfeld of Pembroke Pines, Fla. Bourdage
will join the Ohio State program in the summer of 2020 and Weidenfeld is headed
for Auburn in the summer of 2021.
“I talked to Megan about some things I learned through my
experience,” Shepherd told the USGA website following Wednesday’s championship
match. “Somebody told me before my final match (at Boone Valley) that you want
to play your best golf because it’s the biggest stage, but that’s just not
going to happen. You just have to mentally accept that and have lower
expectations.”
Some golfers never learn the kind of wisdom Shepherd already
possesses at 18.
Furtney made birdies on the second and third holes to give
the future Blue Devils their 2-up lead. It’s not like Bourdage and Weisenfeld
were playing poorly as the two teams halved the next two holes with birdies.
Bourdage and Weisenfeld played well, Furtney and Shepherd just played a little
better.
A birdie at the par-4 seventh hole increased the advantage
for Furtney and Shepherd to 3-up and Bourdage and Weisenfeld couldn’t close the
gap to less than 2-down the rest of the way.
Speaking of youngsters, Furtney and Shepherd had to get by
the duo of Alexa Pano, the 14-year-old phenom from Lake Worth, Fla., and
15-year-old Amari Avery of Riverside, Calif., in the semifinals earlier in the
day Wednesday.
Pano, the runnerup to Yealimi Noh in last summer’s U.S.
Girls’ Junior at a foggy Poppy Hills Golf Course on northern California’s
Monterey Peninsula, and Avery fell, 4 and 3, to Furtney and Shepherd.
Bourndage and Weidenfeld needed 20 holes to book their
ticket into the final in a semifinal battle with another couple of established
teen phenoms, 16-year-old Sadie Englemann of Austin, Texas, and 17-year-old
Rachel Heck of Memphis, Tenn.
Heck, who played the weekend after making the cut in the
2017 U.S. Women’s Open at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., and Englemann
are headed for Stanford, where they will join the program in the summer of
2020.
The toughest match Shepherd and Fortney faced on their way to
the title came in the quarterfinals when they were forced to the 19th
hole by Caroline Curtis, a 17-year-old Alabama recruit from Richmond, Va., and 17-year-old
Mississippi State recruit Ashley Gilliam from Manchester, Tenn. Shepherd calmly
buried a 20-footer for birdie on the first extra hole to keep the championship
train on the track.
The week at the 6,289-yard, par-72 Timuquana layout started
with a bang when a couple of Maryland teens, Aneka Seumanutafa of Emmitsburg
and Faith Choi of Frederick, carded a spectacular 12-under 60 in the opening
round of qualifying for match play April 27.
The 18-year-old Seumanutafa and the 16-year-old Choi, the
reigning Maryland Junior Girls champion, began their journey to Timuquana last
fall when they earned the lone ticket to the U.S. Women’s Four-Ball in a
qualifier administered by the Golf Association of Philadelphia at Kennett
Square Golf & Country Club. Seumanutafa and Choi survived a playoff to get
that one available berth.
In the meantime, Seumanutafa joined the Ohio State program
for the spring semester in January and played a key role in the Buckeyes’ run
to the Big Ten championship a couple of weeks ago at TPC River’s Bend in
Maineville, Ohio. The Buckeyes will be a very sneaky 14th seed when
the NCAA Cle Elum Regional tees off Monday at the Tumble Creek Club in Cle
Elum, Wash.
Seumanutafa had a final exam at Ohio State and didn’t even
get a practice round in over the Timuquana layout. All she did was rip off 10
birdies on her ball. She did win the 2017 North & South Girls’ Junior
Championship at another Donald Ross classic, Pinehurst No. 2, and Seumanutafa
felt that kind of familiarity with a Ross design helped her. But still … 10
birdies?
It was a single-round U.S. Women’s Four-Ball record by a
whopping four shots. Suemanutafa and Choi came back to earth a little with a
2-under 70 last Sunday, but that was more than good enough to give the Maryland
teens qualifying-medalist honors by two shots with a 14-under 130 total.
Englemann and Heck carded a second straight 6-under 66 to
finish second at 12-under 132. The formidable mid-am team of Kelsey Chugg, a
27-year-old from Salt Lake City, Utah, and 31-year-old Julia Potter-Bobb of
Indianapolis, Ind. was another two shots behind Englemann and Heck in third at
10-under 134.
Chugg (2017) and Potter-Bobb (2013, 2016) own three of the
last six U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur titles and they were the only team in the
same zip code as Seumanutafa and Choi with an opening round of 7-under 65
before adding a 3-under 69.
Shepherd and Furtney, the eventual champions, shared fourth
place with 16-year-old Madison Hewlett of Oldsmar, Fla., and Jacqueline Petrino,
a 14-year-old from Sarasota, Fla. at 9-under 135. Shepherd and Furtney added a
5-under 67 to their opening-round 68 while Hewlett and Petrino opened with a
6-under 66 before adding a 3-under 69.
Prendergast and Secor, the defending champions, battled back
from an opening round of even-par 72 with a 5-under 67 to finish in the group
tied for 11th at 3-under 139.
Two groups with western Pennsylvania ties were among the
group that made the cut for match play on the number at 2-under 142.
The last two PIAA Class AAA champions, Pine Richland’s
Lauren Freyvogel, the 2017 winner, and North Allegheny’s Caroline Wrigley, who
cruised to a seven-shot victory last fall, teamed up to qualify for match play.
Freyvogel, a Penn State recruit, and Wrigley, who’s headed for Furman, carded a
pair of 1-under 71s.
Katie Miller, a two-time Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur
champion from Jeannette, teamed up with 2015 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion
Lauren Greenlief for the second year in a row. They added an even-par 72 to
their opening-round 70 to earn a ticket to match play.
Meghan Stasi, the South Jersey native who has won four U.S.
Women’s Mid-Amateur titles, and her partner, Dawn Woodard, carded a pair of
1-over 73s and failed to advance to match play. Stasi and Woodard have teamed
up for all five editions of the U.S. Women’s Four-Ball.
Of course, qualifying medalists Seumanutafa and Choi were
promptly ousted in last Monday’s opening round of match play, suffering a 3 and
2 setback at the hands of sisters Whitney and Avery French. Whitney French is a
28-year-old former Oregon State standout and 24-year-old Avery French played
collegiately at UC-Irvine.
Freyvogel and Wrigley ran into a buzzsaw in the form of
eventual champions Shepherd and Furtney in a 7 and 6 loss in the opening round
of match play.
Miller and Greenlief were knocked out in the first round
with a 4 and 3 loss to Englemann and Heck.
Chugg and Potter-Bobb fell,
2 and 1, to Californians Lauren Gomez of San Diego and Olivia Yun of
Carlsbad.
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