Rachel Kuehn, a graduate student at Wake Forest, has been pretty good at this team thing in the last couple years.
The 2020 Curtis Cup Match was postponed until August of 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic and Kuehn ended up accounting for the clinching point for the United States in its comeback 12.5-7.5 victory over Great Britain & Ireland at Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire, Wales.
That duplicated the feat 23 years earlier by Kuehn’s mother, Brenda Corrie Kuehn, in a U.S. victory in the 1998 Curtis Cup Match at the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis.
With the next Curtis Cup Match played only 10 months later in June 2022, as originally scheduled, at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course in the Ardmore section of Haverford Township, there was Rachel Kuehn again wearing Red, White & Blue and again getting the clinching point as the United States defeated a talented GB&I team, 15.5-4.5, on home soil, the third straight victory in the series for the U.S.
Last spring, Kuehn helped Wake Forest claim a 3-1 victory over Southern California in the NCAA Championship’s Final Match at Grayhawk Golf Club to finally earn a national championship that had been just out of the grasp of the Demon Deacons for nearly a decade.
Not sure if the 22-year-old Kuehn of Asheville, N.C. has plans to play professional golf – I suspect she does – but she apparently is willing to delay the start of a career as a pro to try to make the U.S. team for another Curtis Cup Match in the summer of 2024 at Sunningdale Golf Club’s Old Course in Berkshire, England.
Kuehn, No. 9 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), is one of the 12 players who accepted an invitation from the USGA’s International Team Selection working group to participate in a practice session for candidates for the U.S. team for the 43rd Curtis Cup Match, which tees off Aug. 30 at Sunningdale.
Kuehn and 11 other top American amateur women will gather Jan. 19 and 20 at Seminole Golf Club, the iconic Donald Ross design in Juno Beach, Fla., and Pine Tree Golf Club in Boynton Beach, Fla. under the watchful eyes of U.S. captain Meghan Stasi, the four-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. in the first step toward Sunningdale.
While Stasi has lived in Florida for years, she is a South Jersey native who learned to play the game at Tavistock Country Club. She has won the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship 10 times, including last summer at Sandy Run Country Club.
While more than a decade removed from the last of her four U.S. Women’s Mid-Am crowns, Stasi can still play a little as she proved again in September when she reached the second round of match play in this year’s U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at Stonewall’s North Course in Chester County.
Stasi arrived at Stonewall after doing a little scouting mission in advance of her captaincy at the Walker Cup Match at the Old Course at St. Andrews.
Stasi undoubtedly has fond memories of the Old Course as she played on the winning U.S. side in the 2008 Curtis Cup. That same week, the then Meghan Bolger accepted a proposal of marriage from Danny Stasi, owner/chef of Shuck N Dive, a Fort Lauderdale restaurant that features Chef Staz’s Cajun specialties, delivered on the Swilcan Bridge. Well played Danny, the golf-made Scots would say.
“Since being named the Curtis Cup captain almost a year ago, I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of these women and re-immerse myself in the elite amateur game,” Stasi told the USGA website. “But having this squad in place and this practice session on the calendar feels like the first real step in building our team for next summer.
“The Curtis Cup is such a defining part of my golf career and being able to lead this team next year is something I am very much looking forward to.”
None of the players who will gather in South Florida next month is guaranteed a spot on the eight-woman team that will represent the United States at Sunningdale.
The Curtis Cup has been a spring thing in recent years, but the timing this year might earn a guaranteed spot on the U.S. team for the winner of the U.S. Women’s Amateur earlier in August at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., providing the winner is American.
There will probably be a point in the late spring or summer when the top three U.S. women in the Women’s WAGR will be guaranteed spots on the U.S. team.
Only one of Kuehn’s teammates on the star-studded team that retained the Curtis Cup at Merion, LSU graduate student Latanna Stone, a 22-year-old from Riverview, Fla., will join Kuehn among the dozen players invited to next month’s practice session.
Stone, No. 19 in the Women’s WAGR, is likely, like Kuehn, putting any plans of turning professional on hold by committing to this practice session.
The top American on the latest Women’s WAGR isn’t even in college yet. That would be 17-year-old Anna Davis of Spring Valley, Calif., who is the No. 5 women’s amateur player on the planet. Davis, who accepted an invitation to next month’s practice session for the U.S. Curtis Cup team, plans to join the program at Southeastern Conference power Auburn next summer.
Davis, at age 16, pulled off a stunning victory in the 2022 Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship. Stone and her LSU teammate Ingrid Lindblad, a Swede who currently sits atop the Women’s WAGR, finished in a tie for second place, a shot behind the precocious left-hander.
Auburn’s Megan Schofill is another fifth-year college player who is putting her professional ambitions on hold to commit to playing for the U.S. in a Curtis Cup Match by accepting the invitation to join the practice session in Florida.
The 22-year-old Schofill is a Floridian from Monticello and is No. 11 in the Women’s WAGR. Schofill put her name on one of the most iconic trophies in sports, the Robert Cox Trophy, when she defeated her SEC rival Stone, 4 and 3, in the scheduled 36-hole final in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles.
Kuehn, Davis and Schofill represented the United States in the World Amateur Team Championship in late October at Abu Dhabi Golf Club in late October, the Red, White & Blue finishing in a tie for sixth place.
A couple of other college veterans are willing to extend their amateur careers to the end of next summer for the chance to play for the United States in the Curtis Cup in Furman fifth-year player Anna Morgan and Kentucky senior Laney Frye.
The 22-year-old Morgan of Spartanburg, S.C. is No. 44 in the Women’s WAGR and the 21-year-old Frye is one spot behind Morgan in the Women’s WAGR at No. 45. Morgan and Frye will be among the dozen teeing it up at Seminole and Pine Tree next month.
Catherine Park, a 19-year-old sophomore at Southern California, was one of the best players in college golf last spring. Park of Irvine, Calif. finished in a tie for second place behind NCAA champion and fellow Irvineite Rose Zhang of Stanford in the individual chase at Grayhawk last spring.
Park, No. 37 in the Women’s WAGR, and the Trojans then stunned the Cardinal, their Pac-12 rival, in the semifinals at Grayhawk and Park accounted for the lone full point for Southern California in its 3-1 loss to Kuehn and Wake Forest in the NCAA Championship’s Final Match.
Another California gal, UCLA junior Zoe Campos of Valencia, is a spot behind Park in the Women’s WAGR at No. 38. Campos will join Park in the practice session in South Florida next month.
Virginia junior Amanda Sambach, a 21-year-old from Pinehurst, N.C., was another player who got hot during the college postseason last spring, capturing the Atlantic Coast Conference individual championship at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C. and sharing medalist honors in the NCAA Westfield Regional at The Club at Chatham Hills.
Sambach’s lofty No. 15 spot in the Women’s WAGR earned her an invitation to the gathering of candidates for the U.S. Curtis Cup team.
Kiara Romero, a 17-year-old from San Jose, Calif., is a freshman at Pac-12 power Oregon and No. 55 in the Women’s WAGR. Romero is one of several talented youngsters, in addition to Davis, invited to next month’s Curtis Cup practice session.
Last summer Romero captured the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at the Air Force Academy Eisenhower Golf Club’s Blue Course in Colorado Springs, Colo., pulling out a 1-up decision over Rianne Malixi of the Philippines in the final.
The youngest player invited to participate in the practice session for the U.S. Curtis Cup is 15-year-old Gianna Clemente, a native of Warren, Ohio who relocated to Estero, Fla. But don’t let her age fool you, Clemente is No. 24 in the Women’s WAGR for a reason.
Clemente lost to Romero, 2-up, in a tight semifinal match in the U.S. Girls’ Junior last summer at the Air Force Academy. Along the way to the semifinals, Clemente knocked off Davis, 3 and 2, in probably the most intriguing match of the tournament in the round of 16.
A year earlier, Clemente lost, 3 and 2, in the scheduled 36-hole U.S. Girls’ Junior final in wilting heat and humidity at The Club at Olde Stone in Bowling Green, Ky. to Yana Wilson of Henderson, Nev.
The 17-year-old Wilson rounds out the group of 12 invited to tee it up in the U.S. Curtis Cup practice session next month. Wilson, No. 84 in the Women’s WAGR, has committed to join Romero at Oregon at the end of the summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment