I got a chance to catch some of the coverage of the final
round of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship last summer at Hazeltine National
Golf Club in Chaska, Minn.
Hannah Green, a relatively unknown 22-year-old from
Australia, was holding on for dear life, trying to outlast defending champion
Sung Hyun Park, a supremely talented South Korean, and claim her first major
championship.
The commentators couldn’t believe how poised and composed
Green was down the stretch. Where did this come from? How could somebody whose
biggest professional wins were three victories on the Symetra Tour, the LPGA’s
developmental circuit, handle this kind of spotlight?
But I knew where Green learned to deal with the kind of
pressure she was facing on the final holes at Hazeltine National. I had watched
the then 19-year-old Green battle it out with France’s Mathilda Cappelliez in
the quarterfinals of the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Rolling Green Golf Club,
the William Flynn classic in Springfield, Delaware County.
Green missed a four-footer for par on the 18th
green that day that would have given her a spot in the semifinals and ended up
falling on the 19th hole of the match.
I had mentioned a couple of times in a series of posts from
Rolling Green -- you can check them out if you click the August 2016 tab on the archive list -- that I was fairly certain I was watching some future professional
major champions that week. And three summers later, Green made that prediction
come true.
This time Green faced a five-footer for par, having missed
the green at the 18th hole at Hazeltine National in a greenside
bunker and blasting out. You think she was banking on that experience on a
major amateur stage three years earlier when she calmly drained that
five-footer to become the first alum of that U.S. Women’s Amateur to claim a
major championship?
I certainly do and that kind of knowledge might have helped
clear things up a little for those mystified TV announcers. Digging through a
Google search on Green’s still fledgling career, there was a Golfworld
article by Keely Levins after Green had the lead following three rounds of the
KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, wondering why the young Aussie just wasn’t going
away.
Levins’ piece also included a quote from Green, who, on the
eve of her first major championship victory, had the presence of mind to say,
yeah, she was thinking about what winning a major would mean for her and she
was planning to enjoy the day, no matter how it came out.
“I’ve said all week, I’ve been getting lucky, but I guess
winners do get lucky,” Green said at the time. “You need to take it while you
can and I know, yes, I have thought about the outcome tomorrow come the 18th
hole.
“I think I just need to keep my cool and just have fun out
there and embrace it. If it does come to me winning, I want to make sure I
remember and have fun. I don’t want to be miserable and sick during the round.”
I didn’t see Green at her best that day at Rolling Green.
She was a 19-year-old kid in the quarterfinals of the biggest women’s amateur
tournament in the world. The USGA had set up the challenging Rolling Green
layout as tough as it could and the pressure of the moment led to some dodgy
moments.
But no, I wasn’t surprised to see that kid blossom into a
major champion three years later. Green, who became Australia’s first major
champion since Karrie Webb won the Kraft Nabisco Championship in 2006, would go
on to claim another victory in 2019, capturing the Portland Classic at Columbia
Edgewater Country Club in September.
Green finished 12th on this year’s final LPGA
Tour money list with $1,043,527 in earnings and is No. 23 in the latest Rolex
Women’s World Golf Rankings.
Not long after her victory at Hazeltine National, I tweeted
out that Green will make a triumphant return to Delaware County next summer
when she tees it up as the defending champion in the KPMG Women’s PGA
Championship at Aronimink Golf Club, the Donald Ross classic in Newtown
Township, all of about eight miles away from Rolling Green, where Green took
those first tentative steps toward the major champion she would become.
The first major champion to emerge from that 2016 Rolling
Green field almost happened a year earlier at the same KPMG Women’s PGA
Championship when Japanese teen Nasa Hataoka blitzed the Kemper Lakes Golf Club
layout in suburban Chicago with a brilliant final round of 8-under 64 before
falling in a playoff to a couple of South Korean superstars, Sung Hyun Park and
So Yeon Ryu.
Like Green, Hataoka was a quarterfinal loser at Rolling
Green, suffering a 1-up setback to then 15-year-old Yuka Saso of the
Philippines.
I had watched Hataoka, then 17, during her 2 and 1 victory
over former South Carolina standout Katelyn Dambaugh in the round of 16.
Hataoka was hitting pro-type shots all day and finished off the match with a
long chip at the par-5 17th hole that skipped once, twice, three
times before coming to a screeching halt at the hole for a tap-in birdie.
Pretty sure Hataoka had become the first 2016 Rolling Green
alum to claim an LPGA Tour victory a couple of weeks before the 2018 KPMG
Women’s PGA Championship when she fired a spectacular final round of 8-under 63
at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Ark. to capture the Walmart NW Arkansas
Championship by six shots.
Hataoka was still just 19 when she thrilled her countrymen
by winning the Toto Japan Classic in November of 2018. And she added a third
LPGA Tour victory this year when she captured the Kia Classic at Aviara Golf
Club in Carlsbad, Calif. in March.
Hataoka, who will turn 21 in January, is probably the most
successful pro to come out of that 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur. She is No. 5 in
the Rolex World Rankings and finished 18th on the LPGA money list
with $917,273 in earnings.
A few weeks before Green’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship
victory at Hazeltine National, it looked like another player might beat her to
the punch as the first 2016 Rolling Green alum to win a major championship.
France’s Celine Boutier, who turned 26 Nov. 10, shared the
lead after three rounds of the U.S. Women’s Open at the Country Club of
Charleston with her teammate on Duke’s 2014 NCAA Championship team, Yu Liu of
China, at 7-under 206.
Boutier would struggle to a final-round 75 at the Country
Club of Charleston and had to settle for a tie for fifth place at 3-under 281,
three shots behind Jeongun Lee6, a young South Korean who was the medalist in
the inaugural LPGA Q-Series in the fall of 2018.
Boutier was ousted by Green at Rolling Green, falling to the
Aussie, 4 and 3, in the round of 16. Boutier’s progress as a pro has been
steady. She graduated to the LPGA Tour after spending 2017 on the Symetra Tour.
She earned her first LPGA Tour victory in February in the ISPS Handa Vic Open
in Australia. Boutier’s earnings of $760,430 left her in 27th place
on the final LPGA money list.
Three players who helped Alabama reach the Final Match of
the 2018 NCAA Championship at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla.,
Kristen Gillman, Cheyenne Knight and Lauren Stephenson all finished among the
top 100 on the final LPGA Tour money list in 2019. And all three qualified for
match play at Rolling Green in 2016.
Gillman, who had won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 2014 at
Nassau Country Club on Long Island before arriving at Rolling Green and won it
again at the Golf Club of Tennessee in 2018, finished in 43rd place
on the LPGA money list with $492,466.
Knight needed some magic in the final full-field event on
the LPGA Tour, the Volunteers of America Classic in The Colony, Texas, just to
retain her playing privileges and the native Texan found it, earning her first
LPGA Tour victory at the Old American Golf Club. Knight finished 65th
on the final money list with $295,493.
Stephenson finished 90th on the LPGA Tour money
list in her rookie season, earning $145,628.
Gillman, another Texas native, reached the second round of
match play at Rolling Green, dropping a 2 and 1 decision to South Carolina’s
Dambaugh. Knight also reached the second round before falling, 2-up, to
Hataoka, the Japanese teen sensation. Stephenson was ousted in the opening
round, suffering a 3 and 2 decision to Californian Bethany Wu, who had represented
the United States in the Curtis Cup Match earlier that year at Dun Laoghaire
Golf Club in suburban Dublin.
One other alum of the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur snuck into
the top 100 on the LPGA money list as Maria Fassi of Mexico finished 98th
with $129,164. It was quite a year for Fassi, who was the runnerup in the
inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship and then capped her
outstanding college career at Arkansas by winning the NCAA individual title on
her home course at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark.
It was one of the marquee matchups of the second round at
Rolling Green when Boutier got past Fassi with a hard-fought 2 and 1 victory.
Fassi will forever be linked with the player who outlasted
her for the title in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, Wake Forest’s
Jennifer Kupcho. Both made the decision to defer the start of their
professional careers until the spring portion of the college season was
completed and Kupcho, like Fassi, hit the ground running, finishing 39th
on the money list with $525,432 in earnings.
Kupcho also teed it up at Rolling Green in 2016, but failed
to make match play. But she followed that up with an outstanding three-year
amateur run that she capped by leading the Demon Deacons to the Final Match in
last spring’s NCAA Championship at The Blessings.
In a post earlier this fall, I mentioned the accomplishment
of Muni He, a native of China who captured medalist honors in the eight-round
marathon that is the LPGA Q-Series at Pinehurst. He had survived a playoff to
earn the final spot in the match-play bracket at Rolling Green and proceeded to
knock off the qualifying medalist, Mariel Galdiano, in a 22-hole thriller in
the opening round.
He isn’t the only 2016 Rolling Green graduate to keep an eye
on on the LPGA Tour in 2020.
The last American standing in match play at Rolling Green
was Andrea Lee, another member of the 2016 U.S. Curtis Cup team who was about
to embark on a standout college career at Stanford. Lee would fall to the
eventual champion South Korean teen Eun Jeong Seong, 1-up, in a dramatic
quarterfinal that was a rematch of the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship final a
couple of weeks earlier at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J., also won by
Seong.
After helping the U.S. avenge the 2016 Curtis Cup loss with
a dominating victory over Great Britain & Ireland in 2018 at Quaker Ridge
Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y. and after leading Stanford to match play in three
straight trips to the NCAA Championship, Lee announced last month that she will
turn pro in January.
Lee will be joined on the LPGA Tour in 2020 by her Pac-12
rival at UCLA, Patty Tavatanakit of Thailand. Tavatanakit, only 16 then, reached
the round of 16 at Rolling Green before being edged, 1-up, by Cappeliez.
Tavatanakit was the low amateur in the 2018 U.S. Women’s
Open at Shoal Creek, finishing in a tie for fifth place a few weeks following
her freshman season at UCLA. Tavatanakit completed her sophomore season at UCLA
last spring, turned pro and promptly won three times on the Symetra Tour to
graduate to the LPGA Tour via the Volvik Race for the Card.
The third-place finisher in this fall’s LPGA Q-Series,
Californian Yealimi Noh, will be playing on the LPGA Tour in 2020. After
dominating junior golf in 2018, Noh decided to pass on college golf and turn
pro, nearly winning the Portland Classic that eventually went to Green after
getting in the field as a Monday qualifier.
Noh had just turned 15 when she arrived at Rolling Green.
She earned a spot in the match-play bracket and took Hataoka to the 18th
hole before falling, 2-up, in the opening round.
Another breakout star at Rolling Green was 13-year-old Lucy
Li, the California girl who turned heads with rounds of 67 and 68 that left her
in second place in qualifying for match play. Li would lose to Green, 6 and 4,
in the second round of match play, but she was on her way.
A teammate of Lee’s on the winning U.S. Curtis Cup team in
2018 at Quaker Ridge, Li, still only 17, will play the Symetra Tour in 2020
after turning pro.
Lee, Li, Gillman, Stephenson and Kupcho all represented the Red, White & Blue on a powerful team at Quaker Ridge.
Sierra Brooks failed to make match play at Rolling Green
after reaching the U.S. Women’s Amateur final a year earlier. But after an
injury-plagued year at Wake Forest, Brooks resurfaced at Florida and found her
footing again. The runnerup to Fassi in the NCAA individual chase at The
Blessings last spring, Brooks will join Li on the Symetra Tour next year.
Not all of the alums from the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur have
turned pro. I did a recent post on the 12 players invited to tee it up in a
practice session for candidates for 2020 U.S. Curtis Cup team.
Among them are Galdiano, the UCLA senior who was the
qualifying medalist at Rolling Green, Texas junior Kaitlyn Papp, Duke sophomore
Gina Kim and Alexa Pano, the teen phenom from Florida.
Galdiano was upset by He in the opening round of match play
at Rolling Green. Galdiano is hoping to be selected to the U.S. Curtis Cup team for a third time as she, too, was on the winning 2018 team at Quaker Ridge.
Papp took Ohio State’s Jessica Porvasnik to 20 holes before
falling in the opening round and Kim, the low amateur in last
spring’s U.S. Women’s Open at the Country Club of Charleston with a tie for 12th place, also fell in the opening round, 2 and 1, to
Bing Singhsumalee. Pano failed to make match play at Rolling Green, but hey she
was only 11 at the time.
At the midseason break in the 2019-’20 college season, Papp
and the Longhorns are No. 1 in the Golfstat rankings. Three members of
the team, Papp, her fellow Texan Hailee Cooper, and Agathe Laisne, the reigning
Big 12 champion from France, all made the match-play bracket at Rolling Green.
Cooper, who had teamed with Papp to win the 2016 U.S.
Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship at the Streamsong Resort in Florida,
reached the round of 16 at Rolling Green before suffering a 2 and 1 setback at the hands of the Philippines’
Saso. Laisne fell to Porvasnik, 4 and 2, in the second round.
Gina Kim’s teammate at Duke, Jaravee Boonchant of Thailand,
also made the match-play bracket at Rolling Green, taking Maria Torres of
Puerto Rico to 20 holes before falling in the opening round.
You get the idea. Those of us who watched a lot of golf at
Rolling Green that first week of August of 2016 knew we were looking at the
future stars of the women’s game. That vast potential is just starting to come
into focus three years later.
No comments:
Post a Comment