It was the spring of 2018 when Allisen Corpuz, the “veteran” sophomore, teamed up with four freshmen on a remarkable postseason run by Southern California that carried the Trojans all the way to the semifinals of the NCAA Championship at the Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla.
Two years later Corpuz’s senior season came to an abrupt halt when the remainder of the 2019-2020 college golf campaign was wiped out by the invasion of the coronavirus.
Corpuz, a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, was a candidate for the U.S. Curtis Cup team, which was scheduled to take on Great Britain & Ireland in June of 2020 at Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire, Wales. If the plan was to make one last postseason run with Southern Cal, wear the Red, White & Blue in Wales in June and then turn pro, well, as was the case with the Class of 2020, whether high school or college, it was time to start working on a Plan B.
Corpuz could have just started on her professional journey, but that road was quickly complicated by the LPGA’s decision to abandon its Qualifying School process for 2020. The NCAA threw college athletes affected by the advent of the pandemic a lifeline, offering them an extra year of eligibility.
Corpuz took up the NCAA on that offer, but what about the Curtis Cup? It was rescheduled, first for its usual late spring time frame before ultimately landing in late August as the 2021 golf calendar got real crowded with events, like the Curtis Cup and that little gathering in Tokyo, that Summer Olympics thing, being postponed from 2020 and rescheduled for 2021.
Was Corpuz really willing to delay the start of her professional career until after a late August Curtis Cup? Maybe the kid from Hawaii just had a hankering to see what golf was like in Wales with whole countries rooting against you. Or maybe she really yearned to represent her country in an international golf event that has no small amount of history and tradition.
Or maybe amateur golf had the kind of high-level competition that Corpuz thought might best prepare her for something like Q-Series, the final stage of the LPGA’s Q-School, the halfway point of which was reached Sunday in Mobile, Ala.
The Q-Series is an absolute marathon, eight rounds over two weeks on a mishmash of golf courses in Alabama. The top 45 finishers earn LPGA Tour cards, although your competitive opportunities are somewhat limited. Still, it gets your foot in the door.
Q-Series commenced last Thursday with 110 of the best female golfers on the planet teeing it up at Magnolia Grove Golf Club’s Crossings and Fall Courses for four rounds. The Crossings Course is listed as a par-71 layout, but the roundups made it sound like it was a par-72 course. Whatever. The bottom line, as it always is, was to get around the courses in as few shots as possible.
Not exactly sure who played which course when, but when the dust settled Sunday, Corpuz, who fired a sparkling 65 at the Crossings Course Sunday, was in a tie for eighth place with a 10-under 276 total.
Corpuz was tied with former Oklahoma State standout Maddie McCrary for low-American honors. Not sure if you’ve checked out an LPGA leaderboard lately, but it as internationally competitive as any sport anywhere, which also allows the LPGA to market its brand all over the world. Makes sense, right? More to the point, makes dollars and cents.
The scene shifts to the Highland Oaks Golf Club in Dothian, Ala. for the final four rounds beginning Thursday. There was a cut to the low 70 and ties after Sunday’s fourth round and it fell at 1-over 287. The players who failed to survive the cut will still have status on the Symetra Tour, the LPGA’s developmental tour, in 2022. The final four rounds will be contested over a hybrid course of holes from Highland Oaks’ Highland and Marshwood Courses.
It wasn’t the most talented team Southern Cal has fielded last spring, but Corpuz did help the Trojans sneak into the field for the NCAA Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. with a sixth-place finish in the Stanford Regional at the Stanford Golf Course.
Turned out those four freshmen Corpuz was teamed with at Southern Cal in 2018 was a pretty talented group. Aussie Gabi Ruffels won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 2019 at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Miss. and lost in the final in defense of her title a year later to the undisputed No. 1 amateur player in the world right now, Rose Zhang, at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md.
Alyaa Abdulghany of Newport Beach, Calif. joined Ruffels in the semifinals in 2020 at Woodmont. Amelia Garvey of New Zealand lost in the final of The Women’s Amateur Championship at Royal County Down in 2019.
The last member of that fabulous foursome of freshmen was Jennifer Chang of Cary, N.C., who lost in the final of the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship in 2017 to current Duke star Erica Shepherd at Boone Valley Golf Club in Augusta, Mo. Chang will be at Highland Oaks along with her former teammate Corpuz. Chang made it through the first four rounds at Magnolia Grove with a solid 7-under 279 total that left her in a tie for 19th place and, like Corpuz, is just four more good rounds away from earning an LPGA Tour card.
Corpuz did make the U.S. team that battled for the Curtis Cup in Wales in August. U.S. captain Sarah Ingram paired Corpuz with Zhang – maybe Corpuz’s reputation of playing well with talented youngsters preceded her -- on the first day and they earned the only full point of the day for the visitors in a foursome match as the Stars & Stripes dug a 4.5-1.5 hole for itself against a strong GB&I team.
Ingram went back to the Corpuz-Zhang pairing and they responded with a four-ball victory in a Day 2 match. By the end of the day, the U.S. had wiped out its deficit and the Curtis Cup Match was deadlocked at 6-6.
Corpuz capped a 3-0 weekend with a 2 and 1 victory over Annabel Wilson, Corpuz’s cross-town rival at UCLA, as the U.S. swamped GB&I in Day 3’s singles matches and retained the Curtis Cup by a deceptive 12.5-7.5 margin.
Corpuz jumped on the opportunity to play in some National Women’s Golf Association events held at Magnolia Grove, which she won, and at Highland Oaks. By the time the first week of Q-Series arrived, she was ready.
She opened with a 72, carded a solid 67 in Friday’s second round and again got it around in 72 in Saturday’s third round before her bogey-free 65 Sunday enabled her to finish Week 1 in the top 10.
“I played a couple of the prep events that NWGA hosted both here and at next week’s course, so I got to see the courses for a little bit and get a little more comfortable here,” Corpuz told the Symetra Tour website following her Sunday 65. “I think it helps a lot because no matter how small the tournament or how big the tournament is, courses to play differently under pressure and even just knowing it’s a tournament, as well as playing with other good players. Seeing how they play the course and having the extra rounds definitely helped.”
France’s Pauline Roussin-Bouchard, who spent much of her college career at South Carolina ranked at or near the top of the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), will take a two-shot lead into Week 2 of Q-Series after she dominated the two courses at Magnolia Grove.
Roussin-Bouchard matched Corpuz’s final-round 65 at the Crossings Course that left her with a 19-under 267 total. After opening with a 69, Roussin-Bouchard just keeping getting better, adding a 67 in Friday’s second round and a 66 in Saturday’s third round before her fourth-round 65.
Roussin-Bouchard won the Southeastern Conference’s individual crown by three shots at the Greystone Golf & Country Club in Birmingham, Ala. last spring, but South Carolina had a disappointing finish to its season. The Gamecocks barely survived in a playoff as the top seed in the Louisville Regional and were unable to advance to the match-play bracket at Grayhawk.
It was time for Roussin-Bouchard to turn pro and she arrived in Mobile with a victory already on her resume in the Didriksons Skafto Open in Sweden on the Ladies European Tour (LET) in her second professional start in August. Threw a little 9-under 60 at the field in the second round of the 54-hole event on the par-69 course on which the tournament was played.
South Korea’s Hye-Jin Choi, who memorably finished in second place behind country woman Sung Hyun Park as an amateur in the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., was two shots behind Roussin-Bouchard in second place with a 17-under 269 total.
Choi finished up Week 1 at Magnolia Grove with her second 66 in four days. She added a 66 to her opening-round 69 in Friday’s second round and posted a solid 68 in Saturday’s third round.
Another South Korean, Na Rin An, was three shots behind Choi in third place at 14-under 272. An carded back-to-back 67s in the first two rounds before cooling off a little with a 72 in Saturday’s third round before matching Choi’s 66 in Sunday’s fourth round.
Thailand’s Atthaya Thitikul, the LET’s Rookie and Player of the Year in 2021, and her friend and rival, Australian Stephanie Kyriacou, finished Week 1 at Magnolia Grove tied for fourth place, each landing on 13-under 273, a shot behind An.
After opening with a 73, Thitikul ramped it up with a 65 in Friday’s second round and a 66 in Saturday’s third round before registering a 69 in Sunday’s fourth round. Kyriacou had the round of the week when she fired a 63 Sunday at the Crossings Course.
There are a ton of interesting names on the Q-Series leaderboard, not the least of which is that of former Texas standout Kaitlyn Papp. It’s been just less than a year since Papp worked her way into contention in a U.S. Women’s Open forced to be played nearly at the winter solstice by the coronavirus pandemic. Ultimately Papp finished in a tie for ninth place and earned low-amateur honors at Champions Golf Club in Houston.
Papp seriously considered hanging in there for the Curtis Cup Match, but opted to turn pro after leading the Longhorns into match play in the NCAA Championship at Grayhawk. Texas’ bid ended with a 3-2 quarterfinal loss to eventual champion Mississippi, Papp falling to Andrea Lignell in 22 gut-wrenching holes to end her college career.
Papp’s typically solid game was on display at Magnolia Grove as she had 70s in the first, third and fourth rounds around a 67 in the second round that left her in the group tied for 11th place at 9-under 277.
There was another former South Carolina standout in the Q-Series field, Katelyn Dambaugh, who, like Roussin-Bouchard, won an SEC individual title at Greystone back in 2017.
Got to watch the talented left-hander play a couple of matches in the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Rolling Green Golf Club. She was ousted with a 2 and 1 setback in a wildly entertaining round-of-16 match with Japanese teen Nasa Hataoka. In retrospect that loss doesn’t look so bad now that Hataoka is No. 6 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Ranking.
Dambaugh’s professional journey has been marked by disappointment and injury, but she emerged from Week 1 of Q-Series in a tie for 24th place with a 6-under 280 total. Nothing fancy, an opening-round 70 followed by a 69, a 71 in Saturday’s third round and her best round of the week, a 68 in Sunday’s fourth round.
Papp’s talented teammate at Texas, Agathe Laisne, another French woman, and two-time U.S. Women’s Amateur champion Kristen Gillman, the former Alabama standout and another tough Texan, landed among the group tied for 42nd place at 2-under 284.
Laisne added a 70 to her opening-round 71 before adding steady rounds of 72 and 71 on the weekend. Gillman, who struggled in 2021 after a solid season in 2020, opened with a 72 then sandwiched a 70 in Saturday’s third round with a pair of 71s in the final three rounds.
Laisne and Gillman both reached match play in that 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Rolling Green, Laisne fell in the second round to former Ohio State standout Jessica Porvasnik while Gillman, who had won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 2014 at Nassau Country Club on Long Island before Rolling Green and would win a second in 2018 at The Golf Club of Tennessee, dropped a 2 and 1 decision to Dambaugh, also in the second round.
A couple of former Florida Gators, Samantha Wagner and Sierra Brooks, headed the near-miss category as both failed to survive the 72-hole cut, but will certainly be heard from on the Symetra Tour in 2022.
Wagner, an Easton native, turned pro after claiming medalist honors in a U.S. Women’s Open qualifier in 2017 at Hidden Creek Golf Club in Egg Harbor Township, N.J. and made her professional debut in that 2017 Women’s Open at Trump National.
It’s been a hard road, but Wagner is getting close. She had bookend 72s at Magnolia Grove with a 71 in Friday’s second round and a 73 in Saturday’s third round that left her a shot off the cutline at 2-over 288.
Brooks looked like a future star when she was the runnerup in the 2015 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Portland Golf Club at age 17. After an injury-marred year at Wake Forest, Brooks, a native Floridian, re-emerged at Florida and was the runnerup in the individual chase in the 2019 NCAA Championship at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark.
Brooks struggled in the first two rounds at Magnolia Grove, adding a 76 to her opening-round 73. She battled back with a pair of 70s on the weekend, but her 289 total was two shots shy of the cutline.
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