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Sunday, June 10, 2018

U.S. closing in on Curtis Cup Match victory after a dominating Saturday


   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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