Germany's Krauter wins The Women's Amateur Championship; Englishman Long claims The Amateur Championship

    I usually like to wrap up the Royal & Ancient’s Amateur Championship and Women’s Amateur Championship in one shot. They’re usually staged in consecutive weeks in July and some of the best amateur players invariably show up on some great golf course in Great Britain or one of the Irelands.

   Not sure what the original schedule was in this coronavirus-addled 2020, but The Amateur Championship and the Women’s Amateur Championship both wrapped up last weekend. Deserving champions were crowned and, yeah, no fans, of course. But in a year in which there will be no Champion Golfer of the Year with the Open Championship canceled, just the fact that the Royal & Ancient saw fit to get these championships – the 117^th for the women and the 125^th for the men – played is a triumph in itself.

   As an ardent follower of the Division I golf scene, it was not a huge surprise to see a Stanford player, Aline Krauter of Germany, edge England’s Annabell Fuller, whose freshman season at Florida was off to a roaring start when the pandemic put a stop to the college campaign, 1-up, to capture the Women’s Amateur Championship Aug. 29 at West Lancashire.

   The 20-year-old Krauter will embark on her junior season whenever the 2020-2021 college golf season gets going. She was probably starting to emerge as a leader for the Cardinal after two players who spent most, if not all, of their college careers in the top 10 of the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), Californian Andrea Lee and Albane Valenzuela, a two-time U.S. Women’s Amateur runnerup from Switzerland, earned their LPGA Tour cards and turned professional last fall.

   Of the eight quarterfinalists at West Lancashire, half of them play or will play for Pac-12 programs in the upcoming season.

   The 18-year-old Fuller’s path to the final went right through Westwood and Italy. Fuller, representing for the Southeastern Conference, edged Alessia Nobilio, at No. 5 the highest-ranked player in the Women’s WAGR in the field, 1-up in the quarterfinals. Nobilio, an Italian, is headed to UCLA for her freshman season.

   One of the top freshmen in the country in the pandemic-shortened 2019-’20 season, Emilie Alba Paltrinieri, No. 27 in the Women’s WAGR, dropped a 5 and 4 decision to Fuller in the semifinals. Like Nobilio, Patrinieri is from Milan and already has the better part of a season at UCLA under her belt.

   It wasn’t an American college gal who was defending her title at West Lancashire. It was England’s Emily Toy, who had edged New Zealand’s Amelia Garvey, who stars at Southern California from, you guessed it, the Pac-12, 1-up, in the final a year ago at Royal County Down.

   Toy had to go to the 19^th hole to defeat the fourth Pac-12 entry in this year’s quarterfinals, Lithuania’s Gile Bite Starkute, and reach the semifinals. Starkute will be a sophomore at Arizona this season.

   Toy couldn’t get past Krauter, though, as Krauter ended the gritty English woman’s reign with a 2 and 1 victory in the semifinals.

   The 22-year-old Toy had survived a tough test in the round of 16 before advancing in 20 holes over Chloe Goadby of Scotland and was 4-down after 10 holes in her quarterfinal match with Starkute before rallying to win on the 19^th hole.

   By the way, just to back up a statement I routinely make about the Pac-12 being the most dominant conference in women’s college golf, Garvey’s teammate at Southern Cal, Australian Gabriela Ruffels, won the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship a year ago at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Miss. So, the conference will boast both U.S. Women’s Amateur and Women’s Amateur championship winners in the upcoming season.

   And Ruffels nearly repeated last month, falling in the final at Westmont Country Club in Rockville, Md. The winner? Rose Zhang, still a junior golfer, but headed for … wait for it … Stanford a year from now when, hopefully, the college golf schedule will return to some sort of normalcy.

   If you think the 18-year-old Fuller is some kind of novice when it comes to match play, think again. She got thrown into the deep end as a 16-year-old when she took on two-time U.S. Women’s Amateur champion Kristen Gillman in the midst of a United States rout in the Curtis Cup Match two years ago at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y.

   Nothing makes you grow up faster as a player than a match in the Curtis Cup on foreign soil. Nothing.

   Fuller was 3-up with just five holes to play in her quarterfinal match with Nobilio when the Italian rattled off wins at the 14^th, 15^th and 17^th holes to send the match to the 18^th tee all tied up.

   Both players sent their drives into the water on the right side of the hole. But, after taking a drop, Fuller, with 192 yards to the stick, drilled it to two feet to win the match in dramatic fashion.

   Fuller and Krauter won their respective semifinal matches over Paltrinieri and Toy in the morning before squaring off for the title in the 18-hole final in the afternoon.

   Fuller got the jump on Krauter in the final, winning the first, second and fourth holes to go 3-up. But Krauter won six of the next eight holes, nearly making an ace at the par-3 sixth, to go 3-up with six holes to play.

   Fuller sent the match to the 18^th hole as she birdied the par-5 16^th hole and Krauter made bogey at the 17^th. But Krauter gutted out a par on the 18^th hole and Fuller couldn’t make the birdie she needed to extend the match. The title belonged to Krauter.

   “It’s my biggest win, 100 percent,” Krauter told the R&A website. “I won the German Girls in 2016 and then I’ve played decently in some college tournaments in the U.S., but not being close in one.

   “I felt under control out there. I’m not sure what did the trick, but I was quite unfazed on the course, which I think helped me in the wind and the conditions. It was so fun to play in the final.”

   The scheduled 36 holes of qualifying for match play was reduced to one round by, what else, weather. Wouldn’t be summertime in Liverpool without an all-day rain and some wind.

   Three English women, Emily Price, Rosie Belsham and Issy Simpson, a sophomore at Colorado – yeah, another Pac-12 player -- were among five women who shared medalist honors, each signing for a 1-under 71. The English trio was joined at 71 by Carolina Melgrati of Italy and Amalie Leth-Nissen of Denmark.

   Ireland’s Paula Grant, another veteran of Great Britain & Ireland’s 2018 Curtis Cup side, Victoria Levy of Switzerland and Paula Schulz-Hanssen of Germany finished a shot behind the top five in a tie for sixth place at even-par 72.

   The Amateur Championship wrapped up Aug. 30, a day after The Women’s Amateur Championship, at Royal Birkdale, where The Open Championship has been contested 10 times, and featured the first all-England final since 1999.

   In a battle of 23-year-old pals, mates in the local parlance, Joe Long claimed a 4 and 3 victory over Joe Harvey.

   There were a decent amount of players from the continent in the women’s field, but with travel limited throughout the world due to the pandemic, it wasn’t a complete shock to see two players from England make the final.

   The previous day’s semifinals included another Englishman, Jake Bolton, and Mark Power of Ireland. Long reached the final with a 2 and 1 victory over Bolton while Harvey claimed a 3 and 2 victory over Power.

   In the morning quarterfinals, Long caught a little bit of a breather with a 6 and 5 win over another Englishman in Barclay Brown and Harvey cruised to a 4 and 3 victory over Victor Sidal H. Svendsen of Denmark.

   Power earned his spot in the semifinals with a 3 and 1 win over England’s Callan Barrow while Bolton booked his ticket into the final four with a 2-up victory over Hamish William Brown, like Svendsen, a Dane.

   In the scheduled 36-hole final, Long never trailed, although Harvey kept battling. Long birdied the 17^th hole to take a 2-up advantage into the break.

   A couple of times in the early going of the afternoon round, Harvey got within 1-down, but Long always seemed to have the answer.

   Long, who putted well all day, rolled in a 40-footer for birdie on the 25^th hole to take a 3-up lead in what might have been the dagger.

   Harvey won the 27^th hole to cut his deficit to 2-down, but back-to-back bogeys at the 28^th and 29^th holes by Harvey enabled Long to extend his lead to 4-up. It was over.

   “That  sounds amazing,” Long told the R&A website. “125^th Amateur champion has a nice ring to it. I was feeling nervous, we both were.

   “My game plan was just to try and stick in the present as much as I could, forget what all the rewards and benefits that come with winning.”

   They included a spot in The Open Championship next year at Royal St. George’s and invitations to the Masters next spring and next summer’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.

   Just as with the Women’s Amateur Championship, the opening round of qualifying for match play at Royal Birkdale was a washout and thus was reduced to 18 holes.

   Scotland phenom Ruben Lindsay, all of 16, claimed medalist honors with a sparkling 4-under 67. Mason Essam of England was just a shot behind in second place with a 3-under 68.

   Another teen phenom, Benjamin Schmidt, a 17-year-old from England, shared third place with Sam Broadhurst, also an Englishman, at 2-under 69.