Ruffels delivers on the 36th hole to edge Valenzuela in final of U.S. Women's Amateur Championship

   It was the end of a long day in the unrelenting heat and humidity of a Deep South August at the end of a long week of high-stakes golf and still Australian Gabriela Ruffels and Switzerland’s Albane Valenzuela were throwing lasers at the pins and dropping putts on slick, undulating greens.

   Finally, Ruffels faced a downhill 10-footer with a lot of break in it for a birdie that would make her the first Aussie to ever win the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship. And the Southern California junior knew she better make it because Valenzuela, a Pac-12 rival of Ruffels at Stanford, had three feet for birdie to send the match to extra holes if Ruffels couldn’t convert.

   Getting a terrific read from a caddy, Mississippi State junior Blair Stockett, who came on late in relief of Ruffels’ USC coach Justin Silverstein, the 19-year-old Ruffels calmly rolled it in to complete a 1-up victory and cap just a tremendous championship match Sunday at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Miss.

   Ruffels was born from tennis parents. Her dad, Ray, reached the final in mixed doubles at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 1978 with somebody named Billie Jean King. Her mother, Ana-Maria, was the AIAW singles champion – the AIAW conducted national championships for women before somebody at the NCAA decided it was time for the NCAA to get involved with women’s sports – as a senior at Southern Cal in 1981.

   It explains Ruffels’ ability to deliver under pressure, something she has done over and over again in a summer of match-play success that also includes a victory in the North & South Women’s Amateur Championship at the Pinehurst Resort’s No. 2 Course, the Donald Ross original where the bulk of the U.S. Amateur will be contested beginning Monday.

   Valenzuela is No. 5 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR). She is supremely talented and had lost in the final of the 2017 U.S. Women’s Amateur to Sophia Schubert. She had no intention of losing again.

   Yet Ruffels, No. 52 and rising in the Women’s WAGR, was able to hang in there in the face of a determined bid by Valenzuela.

   The 21-year-old Valenzuela kept inching ahead and Ruffels kept catching her during the second half of the scheduled 36-hole final Sunday afternoon. Ruffels caught Valenzuela again when she reached the par-5 15^th hole, the 33^rd of the match, in two with a 4-iron and two-putted for a birdie.

   Then it was Ruffels finally gaining the advantage on the 35^th hole, the 168-yard, par-3 17^th hole at Old Waverly, when she drilled a 6-iron to six feet and made the putt.

   It was just before that closing stretch when Silverstein had to depart to catch a flight out of Memphis, Tenn. Stockett, who had caddied for 16-year-old standout Lucy Li earlier in the week, took over. To give your player a read like Stockett did on the 36^th hole Sunday and have the player execute it perfectly is the stuff of caddy dreams.

   “I don’t really know yet,” Ruffels told the USGA website in response to the inevitable “how’s it feel?” question moments after being presented with the iconic Robert Cox Trophy. “It’s been kind of a blur the last kind of 20 minutes. But this is amazing. This is what you dream of as a kid when you start playing golf. This is the biggest championship in amateur golf. I’m still speechless.”

   After several years when teens dominated the U.S. Women’s Amateur, it was the third straight year that two college players met for the title. That is in line with my theory that adding match play to determine the NCAA champion has turned the top college gals into match-play masters.

   When you come right down to it, match play is all about grit and determination, traits that were very much in evidence on the final holes Sunday.

   Ruffels earned a berth in next spring’s U.S. Women’s Open at the Champions Golf Club in Houston, Texas and, in a rule change announced recently, it’s an exemption she will get whether she remains an amateur or turns pro.

   Ruffels also punched her ticket into the British Women’s Open and the Evian Championship. She can also take her pick between the ANA Inspiration and the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship, assuming those two events conflict again as they did last spring in the inaugural playing of the Augusta National event. All of those invitations are contingent on Ruffels remaining an amateur.

   She will turn pro eventually and the U.S. Women’s Amateur victory may or may not accelerate that process. Valenzuela will almost certainly be a pro by this time next year, although it sounds like she would like one more shot at earning a national championship before she leaves Stanford.

   Ruffels kept running into Stanford players at Old Waverly and kept beating them. First it was incoming freshman Brooke Seay in the round of 16. Then it was Valenzuela’s fellow senior Andrea Lee, No. 2 in the Women’s WAGR, in the semifinals. And finally it was Valenzuela in the final.

   For those of us who follow the college golf scene, a Southern Cal-Stanford match in the final two days of next spring’s NCAA Championship at the Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. would be an intriguing prospect indeed.

   Ruffels almost couldn’t miss getting a rematch from the U.S. Women’s Amateur with somebody from Stanford.