You’d think a 13-year-old kid would wilt in the spotlight of
a U.S. Women’s Amateur, but I saw quite the opposite when I watched Lucy Li in
action a year ago at Rolling Green Golf Club.
Li of Redwood Shores, Calif. nearly won medalist honors in
qualifying at Rolling Green and advanced to the second round of match play
before falling to eventual semifinalist Hannah Green of Australia. I didn’t
watch her a lot, but the few times I did check in on her, Li seemed to be
eating up the big stage. It was like she was born to be there.
Li’s 14 now and back in the second round after knocking off
Mariel Galdiano of Pearl City, Hawaii, ironically the woman who surged past Li
to claim the qualifying medal at Rolling Green, 4 and 3, in the opening round
of match play in this year’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Wednesday at San Diego
Country Club in Chula Vista, Calif.
Li will get Galdiano’s UCLA teammate and teammate on the
2016 U.S. Curtis Cup team, Bethany Wu of Diamond Bar, Calif. in the second
round Thursday morning. By the time FS1’s coverage comes on at 6 p.m., it will
be the round of 16.
The winner of the Li-Wu match will get the winner of the
all-French battle between qualifying medalist Shannon Aubert and Agathe Laisne
in the round of 16.
Li faced a formidable task in getting past Galdiano, who was
coming off a solid freshman season at Westwood.
Galdiano was hanging tough, trailing Li just 1-down heading
to the 13th tee. But Li won 13 with a par and 14 and 15 with
birdies, her fourth and fifth birdies of the day, and suddenly it was over.
Aubert, a Stanford senior, rolled to an easy 6 and 4 victory
over Samantha Hutchinson of San Jose, Calif. in her opening-round match.
That sets up a match for Aubert with Laisne, a rising star
from her country. Laisne recently rallied for a one-shot victory in the
European Ladies Amateur Championship in Switzerland over Swiss star Albane
Valenzuela, Aubert’s Stanford’s teammate.
Laisne reached the second round of match play last summer at
Rolling Green with Stonewall and Applebrook caddy Mike Rossi on the bag. She is
part of a blockbuster recruiting class that will join Big 12 champion Texas in
a few weeks.
Laisne advanced Wednesday with a 2 and 1 victory over Erica Shepherd, the left-hander from Greenwood, Ind. who was an impressive winner of the U.S. Girls' Junior a couple of weeks ago at Boone Valley Golf Club in Augusta, Mo.
Speaking of Valenzuela, the Stanford sophomore moved into
the second round Wednesday with a hard-fought 1-up victory over Thailand’s Wad
Phaewchimplee, the senior leader of a Kent State program that was among the
last eight standing for match play in the NCAA Championship in the spring.
One of the matches of the day saw a third Stanford standout,
sophomore Andrea Lee of Hermosa Beach, Calif. drop a 1-up decision to
Washington junior Sarah Rhee, one of the four fabulous freshmen on the Huskies’
unlikely 2016 national championship team. Lee is another member of the 2016
U.S. Curtis Cup team.
They halved 15 holes. Rhee won the par-5 eighth with a
birdie, Lee won the par-4 12th with a birdie, Rhee won the par-5 16th with a birdie. That is some serious match-play grinding.
Alabama sophomore and Austin, Texas native Kristen Gillman,
the 2014 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion at Nassau Country Club on Long Island,
ousted fellow Texan Hailee Cooper, 3 and 2. Cooper teamed with fellow Texas
teen Kaitlyn Papp to win the 2016 U.S. Women’s Four-Ball Championship at
Streamsong. Papp will join Laisne this year at Texas and Cooper will join them
a year from now.
Another interesting second-round match Wednesday morning
will pit Mexico’s Isabella Fierro, who won the prestigious North & South
Women’s Amateur at Pinehurst this summer, against Yuka Saso, the Filipino
phenom who reached the semifinals at Rolling Green as a 15-year-old a year ago.
The 16-year-old Fierro, a protégé of one Lorena Ochoa-Reyes,
knocked off 12-year-old Alexa Pano, 4 and 3, in an opening-round match Tuesday.
Caught some of that match on FS1 and Pano lost the putter on the back nine. She
could find neither the line nor the speed on most of her putts.
But give credit to Fierro, who also made match play at
Rolling Green and lost in the first round to Laisne. That pairing sheet from
semifinal day at Rolling Green with the entire match-play bracket has really
come in handy in the last year.
Saso advanced with a 3 and 2 victory over Conner Beth Ball
of Madison, Miss., part of a promising recruiting class headed for Mississippi
in a few weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment