Beth Lillie – Syndication Server

Meet the college golf coach who turned down an invitation to compete at Augusta National

“It feels right to me, even though it might sound crazy to people.”

Beth Lillie realizes that it might sound crazy. After all, who turns down a chance to compete at Augusta National?

“I don’t want people to think it was easy for me, or I was scoffing off Augusta,” said Lillie, “but I think I’m just in a different stage of my life right now.”

Now an assistant golf coach at Cal Poly, Lillie’s main focus each day is sharpening someone else’s game. So when the invitation came to compete once again in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur this spring, Lillie ultimately decided to turn it down.

“I didn’t think it was in the spirit of that tournament, just to go and play just to say I went,” said Lillie. “The more people that can experience ANWA like I did for the first time, and be going to play to win, is the most important thing. It feels right to me, even though it might sound crazy to people.”

Eight months ago, Lillie was teeing it up in the NCAA Championship for the University of Virginia. She finished in the top 10 for a second consecutive year, and then sat next to her assistant coach on the flight home to get help with her resume. While many of her peers headed to the professional ranks, Lillie wanted help other people get better.

“Watching a player hit a new shot or hit a really good shot, I didn’t know how good that could feel,” said Lillie. “Flushing a shot or winning a tournament feels great, but watching someone else you helped do that feels even better.”

Beth Lillie, Virginia women's golf — Beth Lillie (Photo courtesy UVA Athletics)

Lillie, who hails from Fullerton, California, volunteered with her Virginia coaches all summer after graduation. She used to joke about wondering what kind of work they did in their office but is now well-versed in behind-the-scenes paperwork.

When Courtney Roberts was named head coach at Cal Poly last summer, she already had her eye on Lillie as someone she wanted to bring on board.

“She’d always been someone who’d impressed me,” said Roberts, a former head coach at Oklahoma State and associate head coach at Washington.

It wasn’t all that long ago that one coach oversaw both the men’s and women’s golf programs at Cal Poly. In 2015, the school hired a separate women’s head coach and now both programs have fully-funded assistant coaching positions.

“It’s just really neat to be here at a time where we have an opportunity to have a lot of firsts,” said Roberts, such as qualifying for the national championship for the first time.

The Mustangs have never had a player qualify for the ANWA either, but players on this year’s team saw Lillie’s invitation, which she carried in her bag.

“I want them to believe that they can do anything,” said Lillie. “That they can go anywhere their hard work will take them.”

Beth Lillie, redshirt junior Jensen Jalufka and head coach Courtney Roberts at Monterey Peninsula Country Club (Courtesy photo)

The Mustangs are now in the midst of a six-round qualifier for their first tournament of the spring season next month at the Tulane Classic in New Orleans. They are currently 92nd in the country in the Golfweek/Sagarin college rankings.

Lillie, a three-year captain at Virginia, graduated with a master’s degree. She won twice and compiled a 73.51 career scoring average over the course of five years. In 2015, she qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open at age 16.

While Lillie didn’t make the cut at the ANWA last year, she was able to play a practice round at Augusta National that Friday and called it a joy ride, though the nerves were cranking higher than expected. She didn’t want to have to remember hitting a bad shot.

Her favorite strike was a 3-wood that found the green in two on the par-5 15th. Her dad walked alongside and “geeked out” over it all.

“It felt like it lasted five minutes and five years at the same time,” she said.

Memories that will last a lifetime.

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From under the radar to inside the Augusta gates, Beth Lillie brings a unique perspective to golf’s biggest stage

Beth Lillie, a fifth-year at Virginia, won’t take a moment at Augusta National for granted.

Beth Lillie has never been past the gates at Augusta National Golf Club but, like many golf fans who have been to Augusta, Georgia, she’s quite familiar with the view of Magnolia Lane from Washington Road.

When Lillie’s Virginia team played the Valspar Augusta Invitational, head coach Ria Scott detoured the team van past the entrance, as you do.

“We laid down on the grass and did the whole tacky thing,” Lillie said. “It was probably pretty brutal to watch.”

This is the week that Lillie gets inside, having earned an invitation to the Augusta National Women’s Amateur with the rest of the nation’s top female amateurs.

Lillie’s is a name that flies under the radar. She’s currently ranked No. 65 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open in 2016 when she was 16 years old, qualified for the NCAA Women’s Championship last year as an individual and finished ninth and has finished runner-up in two of her last three college starts.

Despite all that, Lillie just wasn’t ready to check out after four years. The Virginia victory lap brought a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the ANWA invitation. It’s a big platform for a deep thinker like Lillie, who earned a Bachelor of Arts in politics and is now working on a masters in intercollegiate athletic administration at Virginia.

Playing at Augusta is sometimes hard to comprehend, Lillie said.

“But it’s obviously so special and I feel like it’s something that probably will take a long while to soak in how special it is for me, especially that I’m a fifth year and this is probably my only chance of ever playing in this tournament,” she said.

Savoring the moment has been just as important to Lillie throughout this season as it will be this week. Three days before the start of the ANWA, Lillie was teeing it up with her team across the country at the Ping/ASU Invitational, and that was her sole focus.

Asked how she’d been prepping for Augusta, Lillie said she was just prepping for each college tournament as it came.

“Physical prep, I feel like I’m doing what I normally do to get ready for tournaments,” she said. “I feel like a big part of it is mental preparation and trying to keep my energy up, keep my schoolwork up, and know that I’m going to be missing a lot of class coming up.

“I don’t want to miss the team events for the world and that’s the most important thing this semester for me and the Augusta thing will just be an added bonus.”

Scott names being present as one of Lillie’s greatest strengths. That’s been key not only in her Augusta preparation, but in the few times this season when Lillie found herself in a playoff for a position in the lineup. Sports psychologists at Virginia have encouraged players to downplay situations – make them less important.

“I think Beth is really good at playing the game that’s in front of her,” Scott said. “Yes, Augusta is grand and important and the biggest stage in women’s amateur golf, but I think you’ll see Beth Lillie just soaking in every moment when she’s there.”

Some of that may come from Lillie’s ability to see the big picture. As part of her Masters program, she had to select an internship. From a wide-ranging list, some in athletics and some having nothing to do with athletics, Lillie chose a job in the football video services office despite having no experience in video production.

At Virginia, the football team’s Thursday’s Heroes program brings a child or adult in a difficult circumstance (medical, physical, cognitive, etc.) to team practice each Thursday. The day involves a tour of the facility, sitting in on a practice and then a day-ending gift-giving ceremony. Lillie’s job was to film each guest’s experience and make a video out of it.

Sometimes she’d find herself tearing up over the computer as she put together the footage.

“Some people, maybe outsiders, look at college sports as just college sports, that’s all you’re doing it for,” Lillie said. “But to me, I know that my golf team, it feels like we matter in bigger ways than that and it’s a bigger part of our identify and I feel like for the football team, part of their identity was this huge commitment to the community. Really being men of service.”

On the golf team, Scott and assistant coach Marissa Dodd encouraged the adoption of three guiding values: latitude, fortitude and gratitude. During the pandemic, with less golf being played, they were thoughtful conversation starters.

The latter two are easy enough to grasp, but Lillie described the first as having grace for yourself and others and understanding that even from your own place in the world, you can make a difference. From that grew the latitude project. Every week in a team group message, a player would share something that mattered to her. Lillie discussed a research project on equal pay for women’s college coaches but voting rights, economic access to golf and mental health were other topics.

All that will travel with Lillie to Augusta, a latitude with unparalleled impact in the golf world.

“Just knowing what a big thing it is and how impactful it can be, it just reinforces how much I need to go and live so much in the present and just have fun above literally everything else,” she said.

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Beth Lillie returns to competition with a bang, winning Donna Andrews Invitational by six

In her return to competition this week at the Donna Andrews Invitational, Beth Lillie found herself on top.

The lost months of Beth Lillie’s junior season at the University of Virginia were spent back home in Fullerton, California, in front of a net strung between two trees in her back yard. She putted on carpet. Golfers everywhere have known this drill in 2020.

Lillie, however, had a mature mantra: “My game is my game, I’m not going to lose it just because I can’t be out on a golf course.”

Nearly four months have passed since Lillie last teed it up with Virginia at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate. In her return to competition this week at the Donna Andrews Invitational, Lillie found herself on top. The mantra proved true.

Scores: Donna Andrews Invitational

East Coast golf has blown Lillie’s mind. Perhaps more accurately, one course in particular. While spending some time with friends in Philadelphia earlier this summer, California native got a chance to tee it up at both Aronimink Golf Club and Pine Valley, an ultra-private golf gem that tops the Golfweek’s Best Classic Courses list.

“Just crazy, out-of-my-mind awesome,” Lillie said.

Asked for more context, Lillie offered this: “Even if you’re having a bad round, you’re having a good day.” But Lillie had a good day, firing 68 there.

Lillie found golf’s hallowed ground to be good prep for the week at Boonsboro Country Club in Lynchburg, Virginia. Lillie fired rounds of 73-69-67 to win at 7 under. That was six shots better than runner-up Becca DiNunzio, who will be a sophomore at Virginia Tech.

“I’ve been striking it well for a little bit now and practicing at Pine Valley and other great courses, it makes you want to miss small and I think I did a good job of that at Boonsboro,” Lillie said. “The greens are the teeth of the course for sure.”

For a long time, Lillie was able to base her game on length, knowing she’d have wedges into greens. She’s recently focused more on placement – being accurate with those short irons and wedges in her hand. This week was the first time she’d seen Boonsboro, a classic layout in Central Virginia. She played one practice round the day before the event.

“My first round was kind of like a second practice round,” she said. “I learned a lot about the whole course.”

Lillie didn’t have a single double-bogey in 54 holes at Boonsboro, and ultimately won on the strength of a final-round 67 that included an eagle on the third hole. She drove it through the fairway and into the left rough, hit 3-wood to 12 feet and holed the downhill putt.

DiNunzio had just birdied her first three holes, so Lillie felt she needed to answer.

“I started with two pars and feeling not in the driver’s seat,” Lillie said. Three closing birdies on the back nine, including one at No. 18, greatly helped her cause.

Lillie’s game has gained another dimension as she’s played more golf on the other side of the country from her Southern California home. Often, she has noticed, East Coast courses have a bigger and grander feel, as if the course truly fits into the place carved out for it. Sometimes golf in Southern California, she says, can feel squeezed into a city or onto the side of a hill.

“It gives you a different feeling,” she said of the courses she’s experienced since branching out in the game and making a cross-country move for college golf.

Lillie played her way into the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster Country Club in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She missed the cut that week, but it remains and important part of her story.

“I was 16 when I played and was so nervous I couldn’t even think,” she said.

What sticks with her most from that week came from her dad. Have fun, he said. She would play well if she had fun.

“I think that’s something I carry with me every round.”

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