Erica Shepherd knows difficult greens. A year and a half ago, she finished T-23 at the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur with a final-round 75 on that jewel of the south.
So when Shepherd, winner of this weekend’s Golfweek Hoosier Amateur, says that the new Pfau Course at Indiana University is the hardest course she’s played since Augusta National, it means something.
“I think the only thing that makes it not as hard is it has zoysia fairways,” she said. “You always have a good lie in the fairways and chipping is not too bad.”
Before Pfau, the last time Shepherd and her older brother Ethan , a senior at Indiana, played in the same tournament, they were just kids – maybe 10 years old, Erica guesses. But for the Shepherd family, there was competition within the competition this weekend at Pfau. They had matching 75s in the first round of the Golfweek Hoosier Amateur, but Erica took off from there.
Her closing 69 was at least two shots better than any other player in the women’s field on Sunday, and the only sub-70 score posted. She finished the week 2 over, a winner by five shots.
Golfweek Hooser Amateur Scores: Men | Women
Erica had the advantage of seeing the Pfau Course shortly after it opened this summer. Ethan invited her down to play, and it turned into a match with a few of his teammates.
“We actually ended up getting in some arguments on what I should hit,” she joked. Erica remembers facing a 180-yard shot and Ethan trying to convince her to take three clubs less. She wasn’t having it.
But that’s the kind of strategy Pfau demands.
“At least 70 percent of the greens work front to back so the first five yards before the green is above the green,” Erica said after the final round of the Hoosier Amateur. “There were some shots, at least three of our holes today, where I played a number like 40 yards less than the pin. You can kind of run it up there. If you land on the green, you’ll go over the green and front is a much easier chip.”
For the first time in months, Erica stood over putts at the Pfau Course and felt like they had a chance to go in. Putting has been a year-long struggle, she said, and she felt it particularly at the U.S. Women’s Amateur. She missed the match-play cut by one after two days of beautiful ball-striking and weeks of thorough preparation.
“I couldn’t even tell you how many putts I had, how many inside-3-footers I missed,” she said.
Annabelle Pancake, a fellow Indiana native, tied for third eight shots behind Shepherd at the Hoosier Amateur. How hard did the course play? The Clemson freshman had a first-round 80. Credit her for rebounding with subsequent rounds of 71-72.
“I just didn’t hit the ball well and had what felt like 100 three-putts,” she said of that opening 18.
Pancake says Pfau is a course where you have to keep it in play. It’s a course best described with big adjectives: a monster, crazy and very difficult, but very cool.
More: Pfau Course a silver lining for Hoosiers without fall play
It certainly will show you what you need to work on and expose a player who goes in without a game plan.
“If you hit a bad shot, it’s going to show,” she said. “If you hit it off-line, you’re probably going to get a bad kick. A lot of the greens were really difficult, they were running really fast this week, they had a lot of undulation in them as well.”
In the men’s division, Illinois junior Tommy Kuhl kept a level head to finish on top. After 36 holes on Saturday, Kuhl had a two-shot advantage on a group of three players. His closing 77 left him with a two-shot win at 5 over.
“I think it says a lot about the course and the potential the course does have,” Kuhl said of those numbers. “It’s a championship-style course but personally I love tournaments like this that are very difficult and par is a good score. I like grinding it out. The course, it was awesome.”
Kuhl won for the first time since claiming the Illinois Junior Amateur the summer before his freshman year of college. Twice before in his Illinois career, Kuhl had built a 36-hole individual lead but was unable to close.
“I think looking back on those and using those to my advantage today was very beneficial,” he said.
For Joe Weiler, a Bloomington, Indiana, native who plays for Purdue, a T-6 finish at Pfau was solid but left him wanting a little more. Still, Weiler wasn’t at all surprised to see a winning score over par after 54 holes.
Weiler had played Pfau twice in the summer, when it was a completely different golf course because of wetter, softer conditions. Colder weather firmed up the place, and that was particularly noticeable on the greens.
“It was fun because you had to think around every shot,” he said. “The best player is going to win there. You have to hit a lot of different shots.”
Weiler knows something about difficulty, considering that Purdue’s home golf course is the challenging Kampen course in West Lafayette, Indiana.
“It’s just being over shots that are difficult and you gotta think about,” Weiler said. “IU this year has a huge upgrade with that course.”
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