A year ago, the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship was
played on Lara Tennant’s home course of Waverley Country Club in Portland, Ore.,
the course where she learned the game from her father George Mack Sr., a scratch player
who has played in five USGA events in his career.
She had just turned 50 and was the co-medalist in
qualifying. Everything was going according to plan until Tennant flamed out in
the first round of match play.
Flash forward to Thursday when the 51-year-old Tennant,
almost as far away from Portland as she could possibly be at the Orchid Island
Golf & Beach Resort in Vero Beach, Fla., defeated Australian Sue Wooster, 3
and 2, to capture the 2018 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur title. Golf can be funny
that way.
Oh yeah, and in the full-circle department, that was
78-year-old dad George on the bag all week. I would refer you to the USGA
website for an excellent story on the role of family in the life of Tennant and
her dad and her kids by Lisa D. Mickey, one of the USGA’s stable of outstanding
free-lancers.
You know, you get the dad caddying for his daughter angle a lot with younger players. At the U.S. Senior Women's Amateur, not so much.
Tennant, a mother of five, drained an 18-foot birdie putt on
the 18th hole to pull out a 1-up victory over Canadian Terrill
Samuel, who lost in the final to fellow Canadian and golfing buddy Judith
Kyrinis a year ago at Waverley, in Wednesday afternoon’s semifinals.
Thursday, Tennant, who played college golf at Arizona, got
the jump on the 56-year-old Wooster by holing a 12-footer for birdie at the
first hole hand never trailed.
They halved the next seven holes, Wooster getting a 40-foot
birdie bomb to fall at the third to avoid falling 2-down. But Tennant won the
ninth hole with a par, the 11th with a birdie and the 14th
with a par to take a commanding 4-up lead.
Wooster extended the match by finally winning a hole with a
par at the 15th, but it was too little, too late.
Tennant had won just one match in eight previous USGA starts
in her career. But turning 50 with the kids all grown up – they range in age
from the 17-year-old twin girls to 23 – has changed things a little.
“I would say, except for last year, all of the other USGA
championships I played in, I probably prepared two weeks before,” Tennant told
the USGA website. “With five kids, I was never prepared like I am now. Since I
turned 50, I was able to have the time to prepare. And I would say I have a new
passion for golf. I love to practice, but I have the time to practice.”
Wooster reached the final by claiming a 3 and 2 victory over
Susan Cohn of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. in Wednesday afternoon’s semifinals.
The match-play bracket, which is drawn after qualifying,
often produces some pretty crazy matchups. The match of the week, other than
the final, at this U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur came in the quarterfinals Wednesday
morning when the two Canadians, Samuel and Kyrinis, who met in the final a year
ago, hooked up in a rematch.
This time Samuel avenged her loss in last year’s final with
a 1-up decision.
Tennant and Wooster, the eventual finalists, cooled off a
couple of hot players in their quarterfinal victories, Tennant topping Corey
Weworski of Carlsbad, Calif., 3 and 2, while Wooster edged Patricia Ehrhart of
Honolulu, Hawaii, 1-up.
When I last posted on the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur,
Sunnybrook Golf Club’s Lisa McGill had earned a berth in match play and for the
second straight year, the 59-year-old McGill, who splits her time between
Philadelphia and New England, made a nice run.
McGill’s bid was halted in a 4 and 3 loss to Samuel, the
Canadian whose victory in the round of 16 set up her rematch of last year’s
final with Kyrinis in the quarterfinals.
McGill had evened the match with a birdie at the ninth hole
against Samuel. But Samuel won four straight holes, taking the 12th
with a birdie and the 13th, 14th and 15th with
pars to finish off McGill.
McGill opened match play with a 5 and 4 victory over Meghan
Christensen of Houston.
McGill then pulled away on the back nine to claim a 4 and 3
victory over Cindy McConnell of Malibu, Calif. in the second round Tuesday
morning. McGill was holding a narrow 1-up lead when she won the 13th
with a birdie, the 14th with a par and the 15th with a
birdie to advance.
McGill had earned a return trip to the U.S. Senior Women’s
Amateur with the exemption she received for reaching the quarterfinals a year
ago at Waverly. She came up just short of equaling that effort, but she again
played some pretty good golf.
Suzi Spotleson of Canton, Ohio has some kind of an
association with the RiverCrest Golf Club & Preserve near Phoenixville and
I’m pretty sure she has won the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia’s
Match-Play Championship in the last decade or so.
The 51-year-old Spotleson, a banking compliance leader for
Synchrony Financial, made it to match play at Orchid Island and got out of the
first round with a 3 and 1 victory over Karen Garcia of Cool, Calif. before
falling in the second round, 2-up, to Canadian Marie-Therese Torti.
Another shout-out to Mickey, the USGA free-lancer, for a
nice story on the USGA website on Spotleson’s journey from her days on a
Northwestern softball team that reached the 1986 Women’s College World Series
to a golfer competitive enough to compete at a high level as both a mid-amateur
and now as a senior player.
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