With dad on the bag, Tennant captures U.S. Senior Women's Amateur title

   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 18^th 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 11^th with a birdie and the 14^th with a par to take a commanding 4-up lead.

   Wooster extended the match by finally winning a hole with a par at the 15^th, 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 12^th with a birdie and the 13^th, 14^th and 15^th 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 13^th with a birdie, the 14^th with a par and the 15^th 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.