Not sure where Alabama women’s golf coach Mic Potter will be
watching Saturday’s semifinals of the U.S. Women’s Amateur.
Maybe he’s at The Golf Club of Tennessee. But wherever he
is, he’ll be looking skyward a lot and saying, “Roll Tide.”
Two of the four semifinalists were key members of Potter’s
Alabama team that took it all the way to the Final Match in the NCAA
Championship at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla. And a third
semifinalist is a prized recruit who will be added to this year’s team.
Kristen Gillman, a junior from Austin, Texas, edged 15-year
Lucy Li of Redwood Shores, Calif. on the 19th hole of a brilliant
quarterfinal match Friday between the two teammates from the winning U.S.
Curtis Cup team as spring was giving way to summer earlier this year.
On the other side of bracket, Lauren Stephenson, a senior
from Lexington, S.C., rallied from a two-hole deficit after 10 holes to earn a
2 and 1 victory over Lauren Greenlief of Ashburn, Va., ending a gallant bid by
the 2015 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion.
Stephenson’s semifinal opponent will be Jiwon Jeon, the
South Korean who will join the Alabama program in a few weeks after dominating
the junior college scene at Daytona State College. Jeon also had to go 19 holes
to knock off Baylor sophomore Gurleen Kaur of Houston.
Gillman, who captured the U.S. Women’s Amateur title as a
16-year-old in 2014, will take on Arkansas senior Kaylee Benton of Litchfield
Park, Ariz. in the other semifinal. Benton reached the semifinals with a 3 and
2 victory over Canada’s Jaclyn Lee, the Big Ten champion at Ohio State this
spring.
It’s not a huge surprise that the three Alabama players are
in the semifinals. Stephenson is No. 5 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf
Ranking (WAGR), Gillman is No. 6 and Jeon
is No. 10. Of course, your opponent in a U.S. Women’s Amateur could care less
about where you’re ranked in the Women’s WAGR. Bigger feather in their cap if
they can knock you off.
And in Gillman’s case, she was battling the No. 9 player in
the Women’s WAGR in Li. The reality is, Gillman might be the only amateur player
in the world Li wouldn’t have beaten with the match she played Friday.
Li got an early lead, making birdies at one and five to grab
a 2-up lead. But Gillman never flinched. Not once. They halved six with birdies
before Gillman finally cut the deficit in half with a birdie at the 10th.
They halved 11 with birdies before Gillman finally drew even with a birdie at
15.
But Li answered with birdie at 16 to take a 1-up lead to the
18th hole. Gillman drove it a little left, but she drew a 5-iron to
about 10 feet and made the putt to send the match to the 19th hole,
the par-3 10th at The Golf Club of Tennessee.
Finally, it would be Li who would blink first. Her
two-footer for par on the 19th hole lipped out and the match went to
Gillman.
“I knew I just had to stick it close because I knew she
wouldn’t make a bogey,” Gillman told the USGA website concerning her approach
to the 18th green. “I hit a 5-iron draw around the tree and then was
able to make that putt.
“And then on the last hole, hit it about five, six feet and
I missed that, but she missed a short putt and I hated for it to end that way,
but we both played our hearts out.”
It was Li’s second bogey of
the week, her second bogey in a hundred holes of golf. She has been
routinely brilliant these last few weeks in winning medalist honors at both the U.S. Girls' Junior and the U.S. Women's Amateur, reaching the semifinals of the U.S. Girls' Junior and the quarterfinals of the U.S. Women’s
Amateur.
Benton pulled away from Lee with birdies at 11, 12 and 14.
Benton’s Razorbacks defeated Gillman’s Crimson Tide in the semifinals of an
incredibly competitive Southeast Conference Championship this spring. Gillman
lost to Arkansas’ Maria Fassi, 1-up. No shame there as Fassi’s brilliant season
was rewarded with the ANNIKA Award.
Stephenson had a birdie burst of her own Friday as she made
four straight at 11, 12, 13 and 14 to turn a 2-down deficit into a 2-up
advantage. It is the kind of brilliance that Stephenson, a teammate of
Gillman’s and Li’s on that supremely talented U.S. Curtis Cup team at Quaker
Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y., is capable of delivering at any moment.
Like her soon-to-be Alabama teammates Gillman and
Stephenson, Jeon found herself 2-down to Kaur after the outward nine. No
problem. She birdied the 10th to cut her deficit in half, then Jeon
and Kaur halved the next seven holes before Jeon sent the match to extra holes
by taking the 18th with a par. Another par on the 19th
hole sent Jeon to the semifinals.
There is no guarantee that Gillman, Stephenson and Jeon will
make it through the two halves of the college season and still be playing golf
for Alabama come NCAA postseason time next spring. Obviously, all three are
headed for the next level. There are a lot of factors that come into play as to
when to heed that call.
But on semifinal Saturday at the 2018 U.S. Women’s Amateur,
the sentiment among Alabama backers will be, as it always is … “Roll Tide.”
No comments:
Post a Comment