So often in these team things there is endless angst over
which players to put together for the four-ball matches, which players to put
together for the foursome matches.
Virginia Derby Grimes, the captain of the United States team
that is closing in on taking the Curtis Cup back from Great Britain &
Ireland at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y., will probably finish the
weekend with a couple of more pairings in her head that she never got to try.
It had the makings of a tremendous team on paper. But you
don’t make these teams unless you can play. You still always wonder how well
they’ll play as a team. I have a feeling Grimes, a three-time winner as a
player in Curtis Cup, quickly understood that she had a great team, something
much more than a group of outstanding individual talents.
The U.S. took five of a possible six points Saturday,
including an emphatic sweep of the morning four-ball matches, and will take a
commanding 9-3 lead into Sunday’s eight singles matches. The U.S. needs only a
point-and-a-half to win this Curtis Cup Match.
Leading the way has been Kristen Gillman, the Alabama junior
from Austin, Texas. As I noted a few times in posts during the college season,
the 2014 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion is just so steady, so consistent. She never
seems to play a bad round of golf.
That’s why Grimes can pair Gillman with anybody. In the
morning four-ball matches, Gillman, No. 8 in the latest Women’s World Amateur
Golf Ranking, teamed with Jennifer Kupcho, the Wake Forest senior who won the
NCAA individual title and is No. 2 in the Women’s WAGR.
They set the tone for the day with a 3 and 2 victory over
Olivia Mehaffey, a junior at Arizona State from Ireland and No. 16 in the
Women’s WAGR, and Sophie Lamb, the Englishwoman who was the low amateur in the
Ricoh British Women’s Open last summer.
Mehaffey and Lamb have been the GB&I captain Elaine
Farquharson-Black’s best team. They were 1-up through seven. But then Kupcho
and Gillman birdied four of the next seven holes to go from 1-down to 3-up.
Grimes has also had the luxury of having two pairs of
college teammates on her side and she hasn’t hesitated to put them together.
Grimes again paired Gillman with her Alabama teammate Lauren
Stephenson, a senior from Lexington, S.C. and No. 6 in the Women’s WAGR, in an
afternoon foursome match and they clicked again to the tune of a 6 and 5
victory over India Clyburn, a senior at North Carolina State from England, and
Annabell Fuller, a 15-year-old phenom from England.
Gillman will take a 4-0 mark into her Sunday singles match
against Fuller. A victory would enable her to join American Stacy Lewis (2008)
and GB&I’s Bronte Law (2016) as the only players to go 5-0 since the Curtis
Cup was expanded to three days in 2008.
Grimes put the UCLA teammates, Lilia Vu, a senior from
Fountain Valley, Calif. and No. 1 in the Women’s WAGR, and Mariel Galdiano, a
junior from Pearl City, Hawaii and No.
22 in the Women’s WAGR, together in a morning four-ball match and the
Bruins responded with a 2 and 1 victory over Fuller and Alice Hewson, a senior
at Clemson from England.
And then there was, of course, the force of nature that is
Lucy Li, the 15-year-old from Redwood Shores, Calif. who is completely
deserving of her No. 9 spot in the Women’s WAGR.
There are people who start to shrink when the moment gets
bigger. Li is the opposite of that. She has an instinctive understanding of
showmanship, something that most people just aren’t capable of. The more people
that are watching, the more cameras that are around, the better she gets. Li
doesn’t just enjoy the spotlight, she thrives in it.
The Fox broadcast team noticed. I know there are plenty of
cautionary tales out there about the teen sports phenom who never quite reaches
his or her potential, but Li always seems to be aware that it’s just golf and
this week the goal is to win the Curtis Cup.
Grimes paired Li with Andrea Lee, the junior at Stanford who
is No. 5 in the Women’s WAGR, in a morning four-ball match against talented
English teen Lily May Humphreys and Shannon McWilliam, an 18-year-old from
Scotland, and Li and Lee responded with a 3 and 2 victory that completed the
sweep of the morning session for the Stars & Stripes.
Lee is only 19, but she is a grizzled veteran. She had yet
to tee it up in a college match when she played for the U.S. team that fell to
GB&I two years ago at Dun Laoghaire Golf Club in suburban Dublin. Lee and
Galdiano, the other returnee from Dun Laoghaire, struggled in a foursome match
Friday.
But Lee couldn’t help but lighten up with Li as her partner.
They grabbed a 2-up lead and then Lee the grinder kept the team to task as they
halved 10 straight holes before she finished off the match by hitting it close
at the 16th and making birdie. Then it was smiles all around as Li
and Lee exchanged the secret Lucy Li handshake.
In the afternoon Li was paired with reigning U.S. Amateur
champion Sophia Schubert, who recently completed an outstanding career at
Texas. They rolled to a 7 and 5 victory over Paula Grant, GB&I’s
24-year-old veteran from Ireland, and McWilliam.
Grant and McWilliam didn’t play particularly well and the
alternate-shot format is not kind when you and your partner, or both, aren’t
hitting it well.
Mehaffey and Lamb got the only point of the day for GB&I
with a 2 and 1 victory over Vu and Kupcho in an afternoon foursome match. You’d
think the GB&I team might be a little intimidated by taking on a pair
comprised of No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in the Women’s WAGR.
But Mehaffey isn’t the back-down type. Farquharson-Black has
kept Mehaffey and Lamb together for all four rounds of partner matches and they
have accounted for 2.5 of GB&I’s three points.
It sounds like the weather might fall apart a little Sunday,
a development that usually favors GB&I. But Grimes will challenge her team
to be as mentally tough as she discovered it was during the run-up to this
week.
Talent is one thing. Being a team, a team capable of
dominating is another thing.
“I just keep reminding them: Stay focused, one shot at a time,
stay in the moment and be patient on the greens,” Grimes told the USGA website.
“Out here that is what it is all about.
“We’re going to stay motivated. It’s not over until it’s
over. Just go out there and play their games and enjoy the walk. It’s the same
message. We’re not going to change anything.”
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