The Epson Tour played for a total of $1.6 million in 2023. This year’s schedule features $5 million in total prize money.
The LPGA battle in Singapore on Sunday featured a couple of Epson Tour graduates. In fact, HSBC Women’s World Championship winner Hannah Green and runner-up Celine Boutier were part of the same graduating class in 2017.
The 2024 Epson Tour season kicks off this week in Florida, and a total of 192 players have “graduated” to the LPGA over the past 25 years. Many of them, like Green and Boutier, have gone on to win major championships.
This year’s schedule includes 20 events with a record $5 million in total prize money. The average purse size has increased $20,000 since last season.
Consider that in 2013, the tour played for a total of $1.6 million.
Hannah Green celebrates victory on the 18th green following a birdie putt during Day Four of the HSBC Women’s World Championship at Sentosa Golf Club on March 03, 2024 in Singapore. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)
Another noteworthy change: the season-ending Epson Tour Championship is moving from LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, to Indian Wells (California) Golf Resort next October.
Here are five things to know about the 2024 Epson Tour season:
ANWA four-timers Rose Zhang, Emilia Migiliaccio and Erica Shepherd are ready to put on a Saturday show.
This year at the 2023 Augusta National Women’s Amateur, there’s a unique group that’s just as exclusive as the event’s namesake.
Meet the ANWA four-timers club.
Of the 72 players in the field for the biggest women’s amateur event on the golf schedule, three have competed in the three previous events: Emilia Migliaccio, Erica Shepherd and Rose Zhang.
“I didn’t really think about it until at the Founders Dinner, they announced it,” said Shepherd, a senior at Duke who is playing her final ANWA this week. “Me, Rose and Emilia, and putting my name up with those two incredible amateurs made me realize that that’s pretty dang good, so it means the world, and just to make the cut and be here and to have been a part of the first one and see how it’s evolved over the past few years has been awesome.”
Shepherd is the only other two-time USGA champion in the field this week alongside Zhang and will have a special pairing for Saturday’s final round at Augusta National.
ANWA four-timers club results
Player
2022
2021
2019
Emilia Migliaccio
MC
2
MC
Erica Shepherd
MC
T-16
T-23
Rose Zhang
T-12
T-3
T-17
“I got paired from Emilia for tomorrow, and ever since junior golf she’s always — she’s two years older than me, so I always called her my mom in junior golf,” said Shepherd with a laugh. “So just to have someone like that that I’m super close to and get to play Augusta National with competitively, that’s just going to be — I can’t imagine how special it’s going to be.”
“I’m so excited to play tomorrow. Words can’t describe it,” added Migliaccio, a fifth year at Wake Forest who will continue her work for Golf Channel by helping to announce the Drive, Chip and Putt event on Sunday at Augusta National. “I’m just going to really try to — I hope it’s the longest round of my life so I can just treasure it as much as possible.”
After winning the U.S. Girls’ Junior, U.S. Women’s Amateur and NCAA individual national championship, the ANWA is the final event left for Zhang to conquer in her accolade-laden amateur career.
“That would be incredible. I still haven’t thought about that yet, despite everything that’s going on right now,” said Zhang of what the win would mean to her as one of the trio of four-timers. “But I’m super thankful for this opportunity. I’ll take whatever opportunity I can get to be able to have a chance and look at that trophy tomorrow.
“I’m really humbled to be at this level with so many great players, but the job is not done yet.”
Humble as always, which can’t be easy when you’ve won as much as Zhang has over the years. The star sophomore tied the program mark for wins in a career earlier this year and has five victories in six college starts for the Cardinal. This week, she set and then broke her own record for 18-hole tournament scores with a 6-under 66 on Wednesday and a 7-under 65 on Thursday at Champions Retreat, the host course for the first two rounds of the 54-hole event.
All three players take immense pride in their status at Augusta National and have seen how the annual spring event has grown year-to-year.
“Going forward I would just hope that everyone understands how awesome of an opportunity it is for us just to be able to have the chance to grow the game the way that we have been and just be able to give back to the game,” explained Shepherd. “It’s awesome, and just seeing all the little girls out here and inspiring them, I think it’s just going to go such a long way.”
Experience goes a long way, especially at the ANWA.
Statistical milestones are common across sports and entertainment. Major League Baseball has its 3,000-hit club. The National Football League has the 500 club for passing yards in a game. Saturday Night Live has the five-timers club for hosts.
This year at the 2022 Augusta National Women’s Amateur, there’s a unique group that’s just as exclusive as the event’s namesake. Meet the ANWA three-timers club.
Of the 72 players in the field for the biggest women’s amateur event on the golf schedule, nine have competed in the two previous events: Florida junior Annabell Fuller, last year’s runner-up Emilia Migliaccio, 17-year-old Alexa Pano, Duke junior Erica Shepherd, Oregon State senior Ellie Slama, UCLA junior Emma Spitz, Florida State senior Beatrice Wallin, as well as Stanford junior Angelina Ye and freshman Rose Zhang.
Shepherd, Spitz, Wallin and Zhang are the only players to make the cut in each of the previous two events.
“I guess I haven’t looked at it that way before, but it’s awesome, and any course knowledge you can bring into this place, it’s a really tough track, I think it will benefit me,” said Shepherd of her advantage as an ANWA three-timer. “This course, Champions Retreat, is a gem in itself. I think that with the new greens and everything, there’s a lot to account for. I’m just trying to still be a learner out here.”
At last year’s event, Shepherd was flirting with the cut line and thought to herself that she wasn’t going to advance to the weekend. But the Indiana native dug deep and fought back to qualify for the final round, where she improved on her T-23 finish in 2019 with a T-16 in 2021 after COVID-19 cancelled the tournament in 2020.
“It’s such a special event, don’t stress out too much about the golf and needing to make the cut because we all want to do that, I want to do that,” advised Migliaccio, who lost in a playoff to 2021 champion Tsubasa Kajitani. “But you’ll really play well if you just cherish everything about the tournament.”
Easier said than done.
“It is really hard. I think the key is to stay in the moment and not get too high or too low,” said Shepherd of the challenges to not look ahead to the potential trip down Magnolia Lane on Saturday, which could require a playoff to break any ties to determine the 30 who will play the final round at Augusta National. “Obviously, everyone is just grinding to get into the low 30. It’s a hard low 30, and 30 only. So it’s definitely a big goal for this week and for everyone here.”
“I really want to be in the same position I was last year, but if I want to be in that position, I can’t focus on that,” echoed the always-bubbly Migliaccio, who played with Shepherd and her fellow Blue Devil, Phoebe Brinker, during Tuesday’s practice round. “So just really trying to focus on each hole. I mean, Nelly Korda always says, ‘one shot at a time,’ and it’s so key because if you just get too ahead of yourself, even on one hole, like already thinking about where you want to be on the green, well, if you haven’t hit your tee shot, that’s going to determine how you’re going to play the next one.”
“But I think anyone who’s played the course before is going to have an advantage,” continued Migliaccio, “and I think that’s a pretty equal advantage. Like if you’ve played it before, played it two times, like it’s going to help.”
Augusta National was an unlikely host to social activists at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur as the sports world focuses on Georgia.
AUGUSTA, Ga. – For the second time in three years, Augusta National Golf Club majestically elevated the profile of women’s amateur golf Saturday, doing its best to show a stodgy and often misogynistic sport what its future looks like, if it truly cares to notice.
By once again flinging open its doors for the Augusta National Women’s Amateur only nine years after it allowed women to become members, this storied club did more than showcase the game’s finest young talent. That certainly would have been enough, but unwittingly, it did more: it provided a significant platform for the social media opinions of several of these women on a range of subjects important to them and their peers, including Black Lives Matter, social justice and voting rights.
It has to be the first time Augusta National has ever hosted social activists of any kind and it certainly provides a stark contrast with what is likely coming Masters week as the eyes of the sports world turn to the very significant political and social issues percolating here in Georgia – and the predictable blank stares and no comments of the predominately white, rich, very conservative male golfers who will be playing here.
On June 1, 2020, just after the death of George Floyd, University of Southern California golfer Alexa Melton wrote on Twitter: “I am not black, but I see you. I am not black, but I hear you. I am not black, but I will fight for you. For what is right. For what you deserve.”
[vertical-gallery id=778096803]
I read her tweet back to her Saturday afternoon not far from the 18th green, after she finished tied for 28th.
“I actually just wrote a paper on this,” Melton said, “where athletes, they have a platform, and where they should actually use their platform to speak out on the changes that are happening. And to just stand for what’s right.”
She said that while she has focused exclusively on golf the past few days, issues such as racial injustice remain vital. “I can definitely use my platform to advocate for them and just put more eyes and more focus on them.”
When asked about their forthright social media comments, several other golfers offered muted replies, understandably so. It’s not always easy speaking up on a stage such as this, where these young players are considered guests of the club and find themselves continually expressing their gratitude for the opportunity to play such a revered course.
Duke’s Erica Shepherd, who retweeted Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s passionate video supporting Black Lives Matter and decrying systemic racism in America last summer, is aware of the issues in Georgia.
“It’s absolutely important to me, it always is,” said Shepherd, who tied for 16th Saturday. “But when you’re competing tournament week, I try to stay off of social media, stay kind of out of the outside world stuff, and just keep my head down. I’ll look at that after this tournament.”
Erica Shepherd walks to the second green during the final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur at Augusta National Golf Club. (Photo: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports)
Her playing partner was Northwestern’s Brooke Riley, who retweeted the Miami Marlins’ historic announcement of Kim Ng as general manager last November, adding, “… this is just the beginning. … Timely since we’re about to discuss gender and racial inequity in sports for class.”
Said Riley, who finished 30th: “That’s always on your mind, but I think when you’re in a situation like this, I think your head’s in a different space. I think when you’re competing at Augusta and you’re competing in general, your mind’s in that space for sure.”
Vanderbilt’s Auston Kim wrote extensively about the presidential election on Twitter, including attaching this tweet to a photo of her placing her ballot into a drop box. “Civic duty fulfilled. Free and fair elections are the foundation to a democracy. Representatives must be held accountable in our democratic republic, especially now. Every vote ought to be counted. If not, our future looks even bleaker. #VOTE”
In another tweet, she said that active voter suppression, “the quest to delegitimize the fair casting of votes” and “declaring a premature win based on incomplete and spun information” are “an embarrassment to our country.”
After finishing tied for 25th, she was asked about what was going on right here, with Georgia’s new voter suppression law.
“The state of Georgia has the right to make its own decisions,” she said. “And I have thoughts on it but they can do whatever they’d like, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.”
Then again, her social media posts have already spoken volumes. So have the tweets of her fellow competitors. The powers that be in golf should listen to their every word.
Some aspects of the final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur will be different, but the course and players will still shine.
AUGUSTA, Georgia – Two years ago, Allisen Corpuz had never seen a gallery as big as the one that crowded around the first tee for the opening shots of the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur. The details are a little foggy – chalk that up to nerves.
First to the tee in 2019 were a quartet of honorary starters: Nancy Lopez, Annika Sorenstam, Se Ri Pak and Lorena Ochoa. Corpuz was in the second group of competitors to go out.
“That was awesome,” Corpuz said. “Just to hit right after the ceremonial tee shots was awesome.”
The first tee may feel a bit quieter on Saturday morning – for one thing, the four legends won’t strike their ceremonial shots before play – but there will still be hype and there will still be a gallery.
Corpuz is farther back on the tee sheet this time – the eighth group off – but the first golf ball in the air on Saturday morning will belong to Hanna Alberto, a fifth-year senior at Sam Houston State who is playing the ANWA for the second time. It will be her first time competing on Saturday.
Alberto made the 36-hole cut on the number and avoided the five-woman playoff. She found out later that evening she’d be first off the tee. Her Sam Houston State coach called excitedly the morning of the practice round.
“He said don’t top it,” Alberto joked. “I’ll call him later.”
Alberto thinks she’ll liken the pressure of that shot to playing the Southland Conference Championship and just try to keep breathing. If Friday’s Augusta National practice round is any indication, the start could be fiery. Alberto birdied the first two holes out of the gate on a chilly morning. She chipped in on No. 15 for a third birdie.
Nine of the 30 players with a Saturday tee time at Augusta National also made the cut at this event in 2019, including Erica Shepherd, who finished T-23 last time. Shepherd said she didn’t even notice the lack of grandstands while on the course Friday, but did notice the TV equipment.
“When you’re aiming at a TV tower for your lines,” she said, “you know it’s a pretty big event.”
Shepherd hopes she’ll be able to feel the presence of the patrons – it’s another thing that separates this event.
“Probably my best memory from the ANWA, one of my best ones two years ago was seeing all the patrons come in on the tournament day,” Shepherd said. “So I don’t know how that’s going to look tomorrow or how the course is going to look different but if there’s not as many people here it will definitely look different and probably have a different vibe but it’s still Augusta National.”
For Maja Stark, another returner (she finished 25th in 2019), the lack of grandstands around Augusta National is a bit of a relief. Two years ago, this place felt so wide that she could hit it anywhere.
“And then 20,000 people came and I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to kill someone if I hit it anywhere. So let’s not do that,” she said.
It’s tough to say whether final-round fireworks will play out as they did in 2019. Course setup and conditions will play a role in that. Many players reported that a headwind at the par-5 13th on Friday made it unwise to go for the green in two shots.
In 2019, Jennifer Kupcho eagled it and gain two shots on Maria Fassi.
“I don’t know if I’ll be that brave. I couldn’t reach it today,” Stark said of whether she’d try to get home in two in the final round. “Fifteen, I couldn’t reach it today. We’ll see how the course plays and if I hit it a little bit further tomorrow and if it’s a little bit warmer.”
Linn Grant missed the cut at the 2019 ANWA, but in her practice round her caddie had her putt to that year’s hole locations. Augusta National presents a lot of nuances to learn in a day, and Grant walked away hoping that strategy on the greens was worthwhile.
“You have to take the information that you really want and focus on it and today we put out tees for the pins from two years ago and tried to focus on them for tomorrow – hopefully they are there tomorrow, otherwise we’re going to be so off,” she said. “That would be terrible.”
To see green speeds any faster on Saturday than they were on Friday would be “exciting but scary,” Grant noted.
Pauline Roussin-Bouchard, a South Carolina sophomore who was a favorite coming into the week, enters the final round five shots back. The greens, she said, are going to play a key role in whatever chase is going to happen on Saturday. It will take hot putting and an ability to hit the right spots on the greens.
“I’m five shots back…and on this course, I would say it’s not nothing but anything can happen,” she said. “I’ll definitely go for it and have no regrets at the end of the day.”
Erica Shepherd turned in rounds of 69-70-70 at the Gamecock Intercollegiate for a 7-under 209 and her first first collegiate title.
Erica Shepherd, a Duke sophomore from Greenwood, Indiana, owns two USGA titles. Now, she owns a college title, too. Shepherd turned in rounds of 69-70-70 at the Gamecock Intercollegiate for a 7-under 209 total that left her with her first first collegiate title. Shepherd led the field with 14 birdies, five of which came in the final round.
Shepherd’s performance was instrumental in Duke’s win as a team. The Blue Devils finished three shots ahead of fellow ACC power Wake Forest.
Entering the Gamecock Intercollegiate, Shepherd had competed in seven college tournaments and totaled five rounds of even or under par while posting one top-5 finish. She now has a third-place and first-place finish in two tournaments in 2021. The ACC did not compete in the fall season.
“After being in contention last week, it feels really good to come out on top,” said Shepherd. “I had a few things from the last tournament that I wanted to sharpen up, which I did and just those few adjustments allowed me to play some pretty good golf this weekend. I saw a lot of putts drop the last three days and I hope to carry that confidence into the rest of the season. Winning a college tournament this spring was a big goal of mine, so I am really proud of that but I’m even more proud of how our team came together and got the win. All of the girls on the team learned from the last tournament and came ready to play to win this weekend and it’s just special to be a part of.”
Duke women’s golf and sophomore Erica Shepherd swept the Gamecock Intercollegiate on Wednesday.
After the 2020 season was canceled a year ago, it’s easy these days to forget who college golf’s defending champions are from 2019.
The Duke women are here to remind you. While just one player from the title team, junior Gina Kim, was in the lineup this week, the new crop of talent picked up where the champions left off.
The Blue Devils, starting two freshman and two sophomores alongside Kim, swept the Gamecock Intercollegiate at Columbia Country Club in Blythewood, South Carolina, on Wednesday, beating a field full of the nation’s best teams. In its second event of the spring, Duke claimed the team trophy at even par, three strokes ahead of runner-up Wake Forest – the lone team under par in the final round – and six clear of hosts South Carolina.
Sophomore Erica Shepherd, winner of last fall’s Golfweek Hoosier Amateur, topped the individual leaderboard at 7 under thanks to consistent rounds of 69-70-70. South Carolina’s Lois Kaye Go finished second at 4 under, with Duke’s Phoebe Brinker, LSU’s Ingrid Lindblad and Alabama’s Benedetta Moresco’s T-3 at 2 under.
Inclement weather in the forecast forced teams to start the third round on Tuesday afternoon to make sure the entire 54 holes would be played. All teams had completed at least eight holes of the final round before play was called on Tuesday night and resumed Wednesday morning.
The Blue Devils finished third last week in their first event of the spring at the Palmetto Intercollegiate and will tee it up next in Augusta, Georgia at Forest Hills Golf Club for the Valspar Augusta Invitational, March 13-14.
The new Pfau Course at Indiana University has teeth, and it showed them to a field of college-age amateurs at the Golfweek Hoosier Amateur.
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.
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.
Erica Shepherd
“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.
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.
Tommy Kuhl
“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.”
With the Augusta National Women’s Amateur postponed, many invitees face uncertainty as their college seasons come to a halt due to COVID-19.
Lauren Hartlage’s favorite picture from last year’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur is one she took of the club’s iconic 12th hole – from the other side of the Hogan bridge. For the past year, it has been the backdrop on her cell phone. She looks at it every day for motivation.
“It makes me smile every time,” she said.
On March 13, No. 12 was the backdrop for heartbreaking news. Hartlage had received an email from Augusta National a few minutes before a notification popped on her phone that the Masters, plus the ANWA and the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals, would be postponed in the wake of a nationwide coronavirus outbreak.
Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley said only that the club hoped to be in position to safely host the Masters and the two amateur events “at some later date.”
Hartlage was one of 30 women set to return this year after playing the inaugural ANWA in 2019. Part of the reason she can still think about Augusta and smile in uncertain times is that the tournament itself exceeded her wildest dreams.
Hartlage, a senior at Louisville, is suddenly faced with many decisions. While the ANWA has only been postponed, the rest of the spring college golf season has been canceled. The NCAA announced it would grant additional eligibility to its athletes, but details are scarce.
In the meantime, Hartlage is trying to treat an unexpected break like an offseason.
“It’s hard when you don’t know what you’re practicing for,” she said. “We don’t know when the next time we’re going to be playing is. I definitely don’t want to stop.”
A year ago, Augusta National was uncharted territory for women, at least competitively. When the ANWA is played the next time – whenever that may be – the stakes will be undeniably different. It can never again be the first time.
Duke freshman Erica Shepherd, another returner, has some unfinished business there.
Shepherd was among 30 women to make a 36-hole cut and compete at Augusta National in the final round. She was nine groups ahead of the Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi show.
Shepherd was 2 under on the front and her name was on the leaderboard until she miscalculated a yardage on her second shot at the par-5 15th and left it in the water. She made double there and followed it with two bogeys to finish with 75, good for T-23 overall.
Like many players, Shepherd has rewatched last year’s final-round broadcast many times. It gives her goosebumps as well as a new goal.
“I think that I had my dream of playing in Augusta, being one of the first females to ever do that, and then now, after watching Kupcho and Fassi in the final group, just seeing the impact that had on the game, being in that position myself over the next four years … that’s the dream now,” she said.
Life goes on, though, in spite of the ANWA being put on hold. Abbey Carlson, a Vanderbilt senior, already has a job lined up at Boeing. The real world awaits.
Carlson cried when she got her ANWA invitation in January. She’s never been to Augusta.
Emotions overflowed at the postponement announcement too, though she admits she was “thrilled to see the word postponed and not canceled.”
Considering that Carlson isn’t planning to play professionally, the ANWA would have been her goodbye to high-level competitive golf (at least until she’s eligible for the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur). It may still be. If the tournament goes off in the fall, Carlson won’t hesitate to ask her boss for days off.
In light of the uncertainty, Carlson hasn’t touched a club since the NCAA postseason was called off March 12.
“It was a hard realization that I don’t know when the next time I’m going to play a tournament is,” she said.
Days after Augusta’s postponement, Alabama senior Kenzie Wright, a first-time ANWA invitee, was in her car headed home to Texas. She admitted to having “completely lost track of my days” with so much of her golf future up in the air. Still, she had steeled herself for this.
“Worst-case scenario, I’m just going to plan on it being canceled and anything better than that is good news,” she said. “I was bracing for the worst.”
Wright was the Tide’s leading scorer this season with 20 of her 21 rounds counting toward the team score. She felt like her game might be peaking with just a few weeks to go until the ANWA.
This would likely be her only chance to compete at Augusta National, and she hasn’t lost hope.
“I’ve had so many of my amateur goals that I haven’t been able to finish or accomplish because of everything coming to a halt,” she said. “This is something I want to stay amateur for no matter what.” Gwk
This story originally appeared in Issue 2 – 2020 of Golfweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.
