Zhang and Heck cap a day of dominance as U.S. grabs a 5-1 lead in Curtis Cup at Merion

    HAVERFORD – Rose Zhang, the No. 1 player in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), knows how it feels to be trailing following the opening day of the Curtis Cup Match.

   So you’ll have to excuse Zhang if she and her United States teammates weren’t doing cartwheels after grabbing a 5-1 lead over Great Britain & Ireland following a morning round of four-ball matches and an afternoon session of foursomes matches on a glorius June Friday at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course.

   “GB&I, all the players are amazing,” Zhang, the Irvine, Calif. native, said after teaming with Stanford teammate Rachel Heck of Memphis, Tenn. and No. 4 in the Women’s WAGR to rally for a 4 and 2 victory over English women and Florida State teammates Charlotte Heath, No. 59 in the Women’s WAGR, and Amelia Williamson, No. 47 in the Women’s WAGR in an afternoon foursomes match. “We can’t second-guess their abilities to make a comeback.

   “So, we really have to step on that pedal and try to play well (Saturday) to gain that momentum into singles. The tides can turn at any time. Match play is so unpredictable. I’m sure we’re going to be able to go out there and play our best (Saturday).”

   Zhang and four of her teammates on last summer’s U.S. Curtis Cup team found themselves on the short end of a 4.5-1.5 deficit at the of Day 1 at Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire, Wales. They know how that feels. They also know they rallied on Day 2 to get back to even at 6-6 at the end of the day before the U.S. swept to victories in six of the eight singles matches to retain the Curtis Cup by a deceiving 12.5-7.5 margin.

   Zhang was part of the only American duo to taste defeat Friday. Teaming with Emilia Migliaccio, the once and future Wake Forest standout from Cary, N.C. and No. 19 in the Women’s WAGR, the U.S. pair was locked in a tight battle with Heath and Scotland’s Louise Duncan, winner of The Women’s Amateur Championship last summer and No. 48 in the Women’s WAGR, with the GB&I team taking a 1-up lead to the tee at the tremendously difficult 209-yard, par-3 17^th hole.

   With GB&I desperately trying to avoid a 3-0 sweep by the United States in the morning four-ball matches, Heath delivered a master stroke as she swung what looked like a hybrid to eight feet below a pin perched all of about 20 feet from the modified Valley of Sin at the front of the green. Heath drained the birdie try to give GB&I its lone full point of the day with a 2 and 1 victory.

   The rest of the day belonged to the United States and its captain, Sarah Ingram, a Duke product and three-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion who played on three U.S. Curtis Cup teams.

   The postponement of the 41^st Curtis Cup from 2020 to August of 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic gave Ingram continuity that recent U.S. captains have not enjoyed with five players from last summer’s winning U.S. team returning for the 42^nd Curtis Cup at Merion.

   Still, picking pairs of players for four-ball and foursomes matches requires an understanding by the captain of where her players are in this moment. It doesn’t hurt that this U.S. team possesses uncommon talent.

   It had to be a feel play for Ingram to go with the untested pair of Megha Ganne, the teen from Holmdel, N.J. who will join Zhang and Heck with the Stanford program later this summer, and Amari Avery, the Riverside, Calif. resident who enjoyed immediate success after joining the Southern California program in January of the recently concluded 2021-2022 college season, in a morning four-ball match. Ganne is No. 17 in the Women’s WAGR and Avery is No. 15.

   I arrived at Merion Friday just in time to see Avery convert a two-foot birdie putt at the short, par-3 13^th hole after hitting her tee shot to a front pin at the 107-yard hole to turn a 2-up edge on the GB&I pair of English woman Caley McGinty, her team’s top-ranked player at No. 10 in the Women’s WAGR, and Ireland’s Lauren Walsh, a standout at Wake Forest and No. 46 in the Women’s WAGR, to a more comfortbable 3-up advantage.

   Ganne drove it into the fairway at the tough par-4 14^th hole and made a routine two-putt par that won the hole and suddenly the Curtis Cup rookies were on control with a 4-up lead with five holes to play on their way to a 3 and 2 victory.

   Ingram went with the Rachels, Kuehn, an Asheville, N.C. native and No. 11 in the Women’s WAGR, and Heck, in the opening match of the day against the formidable GB&I duo of Scotland’s Hannah Darling, No. 14 in the Women’s WAGR, and England’s Annabell Fuller, playing in her third Curtis Cup Match and No. 44 in the Women’s WAGR.

   The tremendously talented Darling and Fuller (with former Haverford High golf coach and long-time Merion looper Nate Oxman on the bag) are coming off college seasons in the competitive Southeastern Conference, Darling at South Carolina and Fuller at Florida.

   But, in the only match of the day to reach the East Course’s iconic par-4 18^th hole, Kuehn chipped it close for a gimme par from the back of the green that enabled the U.S. to preserve a hard-fought 1-up victory.

   Speaking of the SEC, Ingram paired the two players who sat out the morning session, Kentucky’s Jensen Castle, the West Columbia, S.C. resident and No. 55 in the Women’s WAGR, and LSU’s Latanna Stone, the Riverview, Fla. native and No. 42 in the Women’s WAGR, in the first match of Friday afternoon’s alternate-shot matches against Darling and Duncan.

   Castle, the surprising winner of last summer’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Westchester Country Club in Rye, N.Y., and Stone, who shared second place in this spring’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship with LSU teammate Ingrid Lindblad, looked like they couldn’t wait to get on the golf course.

   Taking advantage of a couple of early mistakes by their GB&I opponents, Castle and Stone jumped out to an early lead and never looked back in a 5 and 3 victory.

   Ingram went to two of the players who started strong in the morning session, Kuehn, celebrating her 21^st birthday, and Avery, and they responded with a 3 and 2 victory over McGinty and her one-time Kent State teammate, Emily Price, an English woman who is No. 76 in the Women’s WAGR. That made it a 2-0 day for both Kuehn and Avery.

   GB&I captain Elaine Ratcliffe went with Florida State teammates Heath and Williamson and Ingraham countered with the Stanford teammates Heck, the NCAA individual champion as a freshman in 2021, and Zhang, the NCAA individual champion as a freshman this spring.

   It looked like Heath was going to account for her second point of the day when she and Williamson jumped out to a 2-up lead three holes into the match.

   But Zhang and Heck are only a couple of weeks removed from leading Stanford to the national championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. There was nothing close to panic in the air at Merion. Zhang and Heck were singing songs to each other out there.

   Alternate shot has never been a strong suit for Americans in any of these international match-play events, but the U.S. team looked unusually comfortable in the format Friday afternoon.

   Zhang and Heck then started doing some talking with their sticks. Still 1-down after saving par on a brilliant bunker shot by Zhang at the par-4 sixth hole, Zhang stuck her approach at the short par-4 to 12 feet and Heck dropped the birdie putt.

   Migliaccio had the afternoon off and was following the match. Spending a year away from college golf as an intern for The Golf Channel, Migliaccio, standing near the eighth tee, reported on some kind of team intercom hookup, “Rose and Rachel birdie seven, match even, let’s go-o-o-o.”

   And go they did. Heck sent her approach to the short par-4 eighth hole to the back of the green from where it spun back 20 feet to five feet from the pin. Zhang calmly drained the birdie putt.

   Heck then stuck her approach at the par-3 ninth hole to five feet. GB&I, suddenly under assault from two of the best amateur players on the planet, three-putted and conceded a third straight birdie to Zhang and Heck, who took a 2-up advantage to the back nine.

   The lead had grown to 3-up when Williamson gave GB&I a little opening by draining a swinging 30-foot birdie putt at the short, par-3 13^th hole. But Zhang and Heck made par at the par-4 14^th hole to re-establish their 3-up advantage with five holes to play on their way to a 4 and 2 victory.

   “Rachel and I are comfortable with each other, we’ve played together so much,” Zhang said. “We were playing for each other. Even after we got down early, we just kept going.”

   As I wrap up this post, the Saturday morning four-ball matches are teeing off. Ingram will pair Avery and Ganne again against Darling and Fuller. Castle will team with Kuehn against McGinty and Walsh and Migliaccio and Stone will square off against Heath and Duncan. Ingram will have the luxury of sitting Zhang and Heck.

   If you’re in the Philadelphia area and reading this, there is still a ton of golf to be played Saturday. Do yourself a favor and get down to Merion and watch these supremely talented women in action. It’s free and you’re not going to find a better deal than that.