U.S. will go into Sunday singles in Curtis Cup facing a 7-5 deficit against GB&I at Sunningdale

 

   With Scotland’s Hannah Darling, a senior at South Carolina, putting her considerable talent on display in a pair of match wins Saturday, homestanding Great Britain and Ireland grabbed a 7-5 lead over the United States going into the final day of the 43^rd Curtis Cup Match at Sunningdale Golf Club in Berkshire, England.

   In the morning, the 21-year-old Darling, playing in the Curtis Cup Match for a third time in her outstanding amateur career, teamed with LSU senior Aine Donegan, a 22-year-old Irish woman, to pull out a 1-up victory over Auburn teammates Anna Davis and Megan Schofill, winner of the 2023 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, in a morning foursome match.

   GB&I captain Catriona Matthew then paired Darling, No. 30 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), with Mimi Rhodes, a 22-year-old from England and a member of Wake Forest’s 2023 national championship team, in an afternoon fourball match against the United States’ California kids, 18-year-old Jasmine Koo and 15-year-old Asterisk Talley.

   And Darling helped GB&I pick up another full point as she and Mimi Rhodes claimed a 3 and 2 decision over Koo, who is No. 6 in the Women’s WAGR, and Talley, the runnerup this summer to Rianne Malixi in both the U.S. Girls’ Junior and the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship.

   Since sitting out the Friday foursomes, Darling has gone 3-0.

   Matthew, a member of nine European Solheim Cup teams and the captain of two winning European Solheim Cup sides, seemed to have sensed a good partnership between Lottie Woad, the No. 1 player in the Women’s WAGR from England, and Irish woman Sara Byrne, who wrapped up her college career at Miami in the spring and is No. 49 in the Women’s WAGR, and Matthew has kept the pair together for all four sessions.

   Woad, a junior at Florida State, and Byrne gained a pair of critical half-points Saturday with a pair of hard-earned halves.

   In the morning foursomes, Woad and Byrne found themselves 1-down going to the 18^th tee after the U.S. pair of Rachel Kuehn, a teammate of Mimi Rhodes on Wake Forest’s 2023 national championship team, and Melanie Green, winner of the Royal & Ancient’s Women’s Amateur Championship earlier this summer at Portmarnock Golf Club outside of Dublin, got a win at 17.

   But Woad and Byrne pulled out a win at the last to square the match.

   U.S. captain Meghan Stasi sent out Kuehn and Schofill to take on Woad and Byrne in an afternoon fourball match and the U.S. was 1-down going to 17.

   Caught a Twitter video of Schofill’s incredibly clutch 18-foot left-to-right slider that she drained for birdie at the 17^th hole to give the U.S. a half-point and prevent a 3-0 GB&I sweep in the afternoon.

   “It was important to get a half at the end and the entire team got to see it,” Stasi, a 10-time winner of the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship, told the R&A website. “Rachel and Meg fought really hard in that match and over the last few holes. It was fun to see them get a half.

   “It was just another tough day where again they made a few longer putts and getting up-and-down from some places. It’s match play, so anything can happen.”

   GB&I got another full point in the afternoon fourball matches when Lorna McClymont, a 23-year-old Scot, gained a little bit of revenge on Gibson, to whom McClymont lost to in the R&A Women’s Amateur final at Portmarnock.

   McClymont and Beth Coulter, a 20-year-old Irish woman and a junior at Arizona State, earned a 2 and 1 decision over Green and Davis, the 18-year-old phenom from Spring Valley, Calif. who joined the Auburn program in the middle of the season and helped the Tigers reach the match-play bracket in the NCAA Championship at the Omni LaCosta Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. in the spring.

   Coulter delivered the dagger in the match as her brilliant approach at the 16^th hole settled four feet from the hole and she converted the birdie putt to give GB&I a 2-up lead with two holes to play.

   Turned out the only full point of the day for the U.S. came in the morning foursome matches when two of the best players in college golf in the wraparound 2023-’24 season, Catherine Park at Southern California and Zoe Campos across town at UCLA, put on a surgical display in a 2 and 1 victory over Coulter and her Arizona State teammate and Mimi Rhodes’ little sister, Patience Rhodes.

   The 19-year-old Park, No. 7 in the Women’s WAGR, and the 21-year-old Campos, No. 4 in the Women’s WAGR, claimed wins at the third and 11^th holes and didn’t lose a hole as the teams halved the other 15 holes.

   The matchups for the Sunday singles have already been announced and Woad will be batting leadoff for GB&I in a fascinating battle with Talley, who has been nearly unbeatable in match play this summer.

   Kuehn will be the anchor for the U.S. as she should be in her third go-round with the U.S. in the Curtis Cup again Donegan.

   This was always going to be a tough task for the U.S. GB&I hasn’t earned a Curtis Cup Match win since Leona Maguire led it to victory with the full-throated support of an adoring Irish crowd at Dun Laoghaire Golf Club in suburban Dublin in 2016.

   Kuehn’s teammates will do their best to make sure their leader’s match matters. It won’t be easy, but like Stasi, the U.S. captain and a South Jersey native, reminded everyone, it’s match play and anything can happen in match play.