Talented U.S. team nearly sweeps Sunday singles to retain Curtis Cup at Merion

    HAVERFORD -- Sarah Ingram couldn’t possibly have imagined the journey she was about to embark on when she convened a group of talented youngsters, candidates for the U.S. team Ingram would captain in the 41^st Curtis Cup Match, at Loblolly in Hobe Sound, Fla. in December of 2019.

   Only two of those players, Rose Zhang, then a rising 16-year-old junior star from Irvine, Calif., and Emilia Migliaccio, one of the top players in college golf at Wake Forest, were wearing Red, White & Blue Sunday when the U.S. finished off the second of Ingram’s two terms as captain with a resounding 15.5-4.5 victory over Great Britain & Ireland at an East Course at Merion Golf Club softened by overnight rains that didn’t subside until 10:30ish Sunday morning.

   So much has happened in the interim. The 41^st Curtis Cup Match, scheduled to be played in June of 2020 at Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire, Wales, was postponed by the emergence of COVID-19, a new coronavirus that has claimed more than six million lives worldwide … and counting.

   There were still travel restrictions in place due to the global pandemic when the 41^st Curtis Cup Match was finally contested at Conwy in August of 2021, Zhang, by then the No. 1 player in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking, leading the way as the U.S. rallied from an opening-day deficit to claim a 12.5-7.5 victory.

   The Curtis Cup is often a stepping stone to a professional career and very few players stick around for another two-year cycle to make a second appearance. But 11 players, six from GB&I and five from the United States, who teed it up at Conwy nine months ago were back at it this week.

   I have a feeling we’ll look back on this group of 16 players who gathered on one of America’s classic golf courses as among the most talented to ever contest a Curtis Cup. Despite their relative youth, they have been tested like no other group of women in their teens and early 20s since, what, World War II.

   They have stared into an abyss of uncertainty and come out on the other side, stronger for surviving the challenge.

   Zhang has become the unquestioned No. 1 women’s amateur on the planet since the end of 2019, winning the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship in 2020 at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md., the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship in 2021 at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Md., the NCAA individual crown while leading Stanford to the national championship as a freshman this spring.

   The U.S. needed just a point and a half to assure that the Curtis Cup remained in American hands when the weather cleared Sunday. Ingram chose to front-load her lineup to make sure GB&I never even sniffed a comeback.

   That meant Zhang at the top of the lineup against Scotland’s Louise Duncan, winner of The Women’s Amateur Championship last summer at Kilmarnock (Barassie) Golf Club and No. 48 in the Women’s WAGR.

   And Zhang responded with surgical precision, dismantling the talented Duncan in a 7 and 5 victory. Zhang matched Duncan’s birdie at the first hole. When Zhang birdied the 11^th hole, it gave her a 6-up advantage. Duncan birdied the 12^th hole and Zhang matched it to maintain her 6-up lead. When Zhang won the short, par-3 13^th hole with a par, it was over.

   By then it was just a question of which American player would get the clinching point, Wake Forest senior Rachel Kuehn of Asheville, N.C. and No. 11 in the Women’s WAGR, or Rachel Heck, Zhang’s Stanford teammate from Memphis, Tenn. and No. 4 in the Women’s WAGR.

   Kuehn, a second-generation U.S. Curtis Cupper, got the clinching point when she closed out England’s Caley McGinty, GB&I’s highest-ranked player at No. 10 in the Women’s WAGR, on the 17^th hole, claiming a 2 and 1 victory. Kuehn got the clinching point as she had last summer at Conwy, as her mother Brenda had for the U.S. in 1988 at The Minikahda Club in Minneapolis.

   A few minutes later, Heck, batting third in the powerful top of Ingram’s singles lineup, finished off a 2 and 1 victory over Ireland’s Lauren Walsh, No. 46 in the Women’s WAGR. Walsh is a teammate of Keuhn’s and her roommate at Wake Forest, where they helped the Demon Deacons capture an Atlantic Coast Conference championship this spring.

   In Kuehn’s eyes, it’s just a matter of talent and this U.S. team just had too much of it.

   “It speaks to the depth of our team,” Kuehn told the USGA website. “We have eight really talented players.”

   I couldn’t hang for the post-match interviews as there was a ceremony during which GB&I captain Elaine Sutcliffe was typically classy in defeat, and a lot of picture-taking with the victorious U.S. team and the Curtis Cup and with a wicker basket pin and with their Merion caddies, who performed admirably for both sides.

   I did follow the sixth match of the day that featured the other member of the Loblolly dozen from December of 2019, Migliaccio of Cary, N.C. and No. 19 in the Women’s WAGR.

   At Loblolly two-and-a-half years ago, Migliaccio was sure she was on the path she had always envisioned for herself, a road that would lead  to the LPGA Tour.

   But as the pandemic continued to rage into the fall of 2020, the ACC wouldn’t allow its golfers to return to competition. By early 2021, Migliaccio was starting to wonder if it wasn’t time to slow down the express train to professional golf.

   The week she lost in a playoff in the second playing of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship, Migliaccio said she planned to remain an amateur for the foreseeable future. She took a year off from college golf this year to take an internship with The Golf Channel.

   That was her doing post-round interviews for the NCAA Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. last month. I’m sure The Golf Channel people on-site at Merion this week were quietly rooting for their intern. Migliaccio will return to Wake Forest this summer and take the extra year of eligibility the NCAA granted to those who lost the spring of 2020 to the pandemic while pursuing an advanced degree in communications.

   Migliaccio’s competitive opportunities were limited this spring without college golf. With a weekend of high-stakes golf at Merion behind her, Migliaccio’s game looked pretty sharp Sunday. Migliaccio was paired with England’s Annabell Fuller, playing in her third Curtis Cup for GB&I and one of the top players at Florida the last three springs.

   Fuller found bunkers off the tee on the first two holes and Migliaccio won both holes with pars, quickly grabbing a 2-up lead. Fuller made a testy downhill 10-footer for birdie at the par-5 fourth hole and she had to because Migliaccio had stiffed her approach to two feet. Migliaccio dropped her birdie putt right on top of Fuller’s.

   Migliaccio hit a brilliant approach to four feet at the par-4 fifth hole, the No.-1 handicap hole on the East Course, and won that hole with a birdie and was 3-up.

   Migliaccio took advantage of mistakes by Fuller to win the ninth and 11^th holes with pars to increase her advantage to 5-up.

   What happened at the short, par-3 13^th hole summed up the weekend for both the U.S. and GB&I. Migliaccio was safely on, 20 feet below the hole, while Fuller stuck her tee shot five feet from the hole. Migliaccio promptly rolled in her right-to-left swinger for birdie and Fuller missed her birdie try and it was over, Migliaccio delivering another U.S. point with a 6 and 5 victory.

   “Last year was definitely touch and go (in singles),” Ingram told the USGA website concerning the Saturday singles at Conwy last August. “It was that way through the front nine and then the board started to turn red.

   “The score looked more lopsided than it was. GB&I’s players never gave up and were fighting hard and I didn’t want to fool around (with the lineup).”

   Much of Ingram’s lineup will have turned pro when the 43^rd Curtis Cup Match is staged at Sunningdale Golf Club in England in 2024. There will be a new captain. It will be interesting to see if Migliaccio remains a competitive amateur and gives the Curtis Cup another go.

   Jensen Castle of West Columbia, S.C. and No. 55 in the Women’s WAGR claimed a 2 and 1 victory over Southeastern Conference rival Hannah Darling, the Scot who is  No. 14 in the Women’s WAGR. Castle, a senior at Kentucky, will defend her U.S. Women’s Amateur title later this summer at Chambers Bay Golf Course in University Place, Wash.

   It was a frustrating week for Darling, coming off a solid freshman season at South Carolina, but she has the potential to be the best player to emerge from this Curtis Cup. I fully expect to see her playing for Europe in a Solheim Cup somewhere down the road.

   The U.S. also got a 1-up victory Sunday from Latanna Stone of Riverview, Fla. and No. 42 in the Women’s WAGR. Stone, who helped LSU capture an SEC title this spring, stuck her approach to two feet at the East Course’s iconic finishing hole to edge England’s Charlotte Heath, who is No. 59 in the Women’s WAGR.

   Perhaps Megha Ganne, the kid from Holmdel, N.J. and No. 17 in the Women’s WAGR, remains an amateur long enough to play for the U.S. in two years at Sunningdale. Ganne closed her Curtis Cup at Merion with a 2 and 1 victory over Heath’s Florida State teammate and fellow English woman Amelia Williamson, who is No. 47 in the Women’s WAGR.

   In a scary prospect for the rest of Division I college golf, Ganne will join Zhang and Heck at Stanford later this summer.

   The only loss in the Sunday singles for the U.S. was suffered by Amari Avery of Riverside, Calif. and No. 15 in the Women’s WAGR  as she dropped a 4 and 3 decision to England’s Emily Price, a Kent State graduate and No. 76 in the Women’s WAGR.

   Avery entered the Sunday singles with a chance to join Stacy Lewis and Kristen Gillman as the only American players with a 5-0 record in Curtis Cup play. Her loss Sunday did nothing to diminish her role in helping the U.S. secure this Curtis Cup victory.

   Coming off a spectacular half a freshman season at Southern California, Avery is headed for stardom at the next level whenever she decides to turn professional. Talent is one thing, star power is another. Avery has both.