Kuehn, Walsh go 1-2 to lead Wake Forest to domnating team victory in Palmetto Intercollegiate

                                                                                                                                                                           
The Atlantic Coast Conference Championship will tee off seven weeks from Thursday.

   That’s why there might have been a little more urgency than you might normally expect from a late February tournament that included some of the ACC’s top contenders.

   The last time the NCAA Championship was contested in the spring of 2019 at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark., the Final Match was an all-ACC affair with Duke edging Wake Forest, 3-2, to claim the seventh national championship in program history.

   Wake Forest was on a roll when the coronavirus pandemic brought the wraparound 2019-2020 season to a screeching halt. The Demon Deacons were ranked No. 1 by Golfstat. As the coronavirus continued to rampage in the fall, the ACC decided it wasn’t safe to play college sports. It had already been proven that golf could be played safely, but that’s another issue for another day.

   Wake Forest has started strong in a wraparound 2020-’21 season that’s been reduced to just a 2021 season. The Demon Deacons arrived at the Palmetto Intercollegiate, which concluded Monday at the Turtle Point Golf course on Kiawah Island, S.C., at No. 7 in the first Golfstat rankings of the spring.

   And they came away with their first tournament victory of the season, leaving runnerup Virginia, ranked No. 5, and the rest of the field in the dust with a whopping 28-shot margin of victory, the second-biggest winning advantage in the history of the program.

   Duke was there, too, still unranked since the Palmetto was the Blue Devils’ first tournament of the    season. Duke finished a shot behind Virginia in third place with another ACC entry, No. 37 Clemson, another shot behind the Blue Devils in fourth place.

   Virginia had edged Wake Forest by a shot to capture the team title in the UCF Challenge three weeks ago, but the Demon Deacons turned the tables on the Cavaliers in a big way this time.

   The wind was up along the Atlantic Ocean and so were the scores. Wake Forest opened with an 11-over 299 over the 6,021-yard, par-72 Turtle Point layout and then took command of the tournament by matching par with a 288 in the second round of Sunday’s scheduled double round. A few groups had to return to the course to complete their second rounds Monday morning, but the Demon Deacons took a 21-shot lead over Virginia and Duke into the final round.

   Behind individual champion Rachel Kuehn, a sophomore from Asheville, N.C. and No. 25 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), Wake Forest closed it out Monday with the only sub-par round of the tournament, a 1-under 287, to finish with a 10-over 874 total.

   Virginia carded a pair of 16-over 304s in Sunday’s double round and closed with a solid 6-over 294 as the Cavaliers finished with a 38-over 902 total. The Dookies added a 206 to their opening-round 302 before closing with a 7-over 295, kicking off the rust as they went along, to end up a shot behind Virginia in third place at 39-over 903.

   The Palmetto also marked the first of what figures to be many collegiate meetings between the two Wilmington, Del., standouts, Virginia’s Jennifer Cleary, a Tower Hill product, and Duke’s Phoebe Brinker, the Archmere Academy standout who was making her college debut.

   They were teammates for one memorable week in September of 2017 when they led Delaware to a startling runnerup finish in the final edition of the USGA Women’s State Amateur Team Championship at The Club at Las Campanas’ Sunrise Course in Santa Fe. N.M. Nothing they do surprises me ever since.

   Cleary had come up huge for a veteran Virginia team in its team victory in the UCF Challenge. She struggled a little in the tough conditions at Turtle Point, opening with a 77 and adding a 79 before closing with her best round of the tournament, a 4-over 76 that left her among the group tied for 31^st place at 232.

   That was three shots better than Brinker, who had to be feeling the nerves a little making her debut for one of the premier programs in college golf. She added a pair of 78s to her opening-round 79 to finish in the group tied for 35^th place at 235. I’m certain that the chief concern of both players was the team outcome, so give Cleary the edge this time, albeit it by one shot.

   Clemson struggled with the tricky winds in an opening-round 315, but bounced back with a 6-over 294 in Sunday afternoon’s second round before finishing up with a solid 7-over 295 that left the Tigers a shot behind Duke in fourth place at 40-over 904.

   Furman, too, was making its first start in nearly a year and the Paladins closed with a 9-over 297 to finish five shots behind Clemson in fifth place at 45-over 909.

   No. 19 Virginia Tech, another ACC entry, finished sixth in the 11-team field and the Hokies closed with their best round of the tournament in Monday’s final round, their 299 leaving them a shot behind Furman in sixth place at 46-over 910. Virginia Tech posted totals of 307 and 304 in Sunday’s double round.

   Kuehn, winner of the North & South Women’s Amateur Championship last summer at the Pinehurst Resort’s iconic No. 2 Course, put together solid rounds of 1-over 73 and 2-over 74 in Sunday’s double round and trailed East Carolina’s Dorthea Forbrigd, a senior from Norway, by three shots and her Wake Forest teammate Lauren Walsh, a sophomore from Ireland and No. 29 in the Women’s WAGR, by two.

   Kuehn offset two bogeys on the front nine with three birdies to make the turn at 1-under in Monday’s final round. She then birdied the first two holes on the back nine, the 10^th and 11^th holes, and grinded out seven pars to close with a 3-under 69 and capture the individual title with an even-par 216.

   Walsh had opened with a 77, but bounced back with the best individual round of the tournament, a 4-under 68, in Sunday afternoon’s second round. She matched par in the final round with a 72 to finish a shot behind her teammate Kuehn at 1-over 217 and give Wake Forest a 1-2 finish in the individual standings.

   Emilia Migliaccio, a senior from Cary, N.C. and No. 11 in the Women’s WAGR, gave Wake Forest three finishers in the top five as she ended up alone in fifth place at 5-over 218. Migliaccio added a 1-under 71 to her opening-round 76 and was right there with Kuehn, three shots out of the lead. Migliaccio closed with a 2-over 74.

   Siyun Liu, a graduate student from China and No. 48 in the Women’s WAGR, finished in a tie for 13^th place for the Demon Deacons at 10-over 226. Liu opened with a 1-over 73 and added a 75 before closing with a 78.

   Rounding out the Wake Forest lineup was Mimi Rhodes, a freshman from England who, after carding a pair of 79s in Sunday’s double round, closed by matching par in Monday’s final round with a 72 to finish in the group tied for 25^th place at 230.

   Migliaccio and Liu had the Wake Forest points in the 3-2 loss to Duke in the NCAA’s Final Match at The Blessings. The two freshmen from that run to the final, Vanessa Knecht of Switzerland and Letizia Bagnoli of Italy, are still on the roster, so there is plenty of depth.

   Only Gina Kim, a junior from Chapel Hill, N.C. and No. 42 in the Women’s WAGR, from Duke’s 2019 national championship team teed it up in the Palmetto, although Jaravee Boonchant, a senior from Thailand from that team, remains on the roster. Kim matched par in the final round with a 72 to end up among the group tied for 18^th place at 227.

   Duke was led by Erica Shepherd, the talented left-hander from Greenwood, Ind. who captured the 2017 U.S. Junior Girls’ Championship at Boone Valley Golf Club in Augusta, Mo. Erica Shepherd opened with a 1-under 71 and added a 75 before closing with a 1-over 73 to finish two shots behind Wake Forest’s Walsh in third place in the individual standings at 3-over 219.

   Virginia’s Beth Lillie, a senior from Fullerton, Calif., bounced back from an opening-round 77 by matching par in Sunday afternoon’s second round with a 72 and closing with a 1-under 71 to finish alone in fourth place, a shot behind Erica Shepherd at 4-over 220.

   East Carolina’s Forbrigd was really solid in Sunday’s double round, adding a 73 to her opening round of 1-under 71. She backed off with a final-round 79 and landed in a tie for sixth place with Clemson’s Ivy Shepherd, a junior from Peachtree City, Ga., at 7-over 223, two shots behind Wake Forest’s Migliaccio.

   Ivy Shepherd, who made a run to the semifinals in the North & South won by Kuehn, matched par in the final round to catch Forbrigd for her share of sixth place.

   Leading the way for Furman was Anna Morgan, a sophomore from Spartanburg, S.C. who finished alone in eighth place at 8-over 224, a shot behind Ivy Shepherd and Forbrigd. Morgan struggled in the opening round with a 79, but bounced back with a 1-under 71 in Sunday afternoon’s second round before closing with a 74.

   Virginia’s Riley Smyth, a junior from Cary, N.C., and Virginia Bossi, a sophomore from Italy, were two of the four players that rounded out the top 10 in a tie for ninth place at 9-over 225.

   Smyth, who made a run to the quarterfinals in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Amateur at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md., matched par in the opening round with a 72, struggled a little in Sunday afternoon’s second round with a 79 and finished up with a 2-over 74. Bossi improved every round, adding a 74 to her opening-round 78 and closing with a solid 1-over 73.

   Rounding out the quartet at 225 were Ivy Shepherd’s Clemson teammate, Alexandra Swayne, a junior from Maineville, Ohio, and Virginia Tech’s Emily Mahar, a freshman from Australia. Swayne came on strong after an opening-round 80, carding a 1-under 71 in Sunday afternoon’s second round and closing with a 74. Mahar opened with a 1-over 73 and added a 75 before finishing up with a 77.

   Also in the Furman lineup was sophomore Caroline Wrigley, the 2018 PIAA Class AAA champion as a senior at North Allegheny. After opening with a 75, Wrigley struggled to back-to-back 80s to land in the group tied for 35^th place at 235.

   Wake Forest’s Kuehn and Migliaccio and Duke’s Kim were among the dozen players who auditioned for a spot on the U.S. Curtis Cup team last month in a practice session at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club in Orlando, Fla. Wake’s Walsh and Rhodes, on the other hand, are two of 17 women on a list of candidates for the Great Britain & Ireland team put out by the Royal & Ancient.

   The Curtis Cup Match, originally scheduled to be played in June of 2020, was a casualty of the pandemic and has been rescheduled for August of this year at the Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire, Wales.