The Kentucky women’s golf team stands if first place in the NEXUS Collegiate Tournament
The University of Kentucky women’s golf team is in first place after two rounds in the NEXUS Collegiate Tournament at the Albany Golf Club, in Nassau, Bahamas.
Through two rounds, all six wildcat golfers are in the top 20 of the individual leaderboard, out of the 66 individual golfers in attendance. The team is sitting at three over par for the tournament, three strokes ahead of Iowa State, who is in second, and seven strokes ahead of third place North Texas.
Senior All-American Laney Frye leads the Wildcats at two under par, and sits at second in the tournament. She is three shots behind leader Isabel Sy. Frye is looking for her first individual title.
Also in the top 20 for the Wildcats are Jensen Castle, who is tied for fifth at even par, Marissa Wenzler, who is tied for tenth at two over par and then Marta López Echevarría, María Villanueva Aperribay and Cathryn Brown who are all tied for twentieth at five over par.
The final round of the tournament tees off at 8 am EST on Wednesday, February 14th. The team is looking for their first win of the season and their third in the past two seasons.
Frye grew up in Lexington but Castle says “never in a million years” did she think she’d end up a Wildcat.
Last fall during the PGA Tour’s CJ Cup at Congaree Golf Club in Ridgeland, South Carolina, Laney Frye made her way over from Kentucky to meet with her swing coach, Ted Scott. It was there that Scott, a longtime PGA Tour caddie who currently works for World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, showed Frye how to create more width early in her downswing.
Frye, 20, went home to Lexington with the new move and saw that she was cruising at 105 mph on TrackMan.
“Well, shoot,” Frye said to herself. “It takes something to get over 100.”
The Kentucky junior added more weight shift and rotation and got up to 110 mph that first day, tacking on nearly 30 extra yards off the tee. She said Scott didn’t teach the move saying this is going to add more distance to your game. She just executed and ran with it.
In February, when the Wildcats teed it up in the UCF Challenge, Frye was stunned to find herself hitting driver, wedge on nearly every par 4.
“It’s a different stratosphere when she hits it,” said Kentucky head coach Golda Borst, who notes that Frye can now get close to 290.
Kentucky’s Laney Frye recently unlocked an explosion of power off the tee working with PGA Tour caddie Ted Scott. She’ll be one to watch at @anwagolf! Read the story: https://t.co/rAVASv9Xyd Watch the swing 🔽 pic.twitter.com/Imo2XQjhNK
That power will come in handy for Frye when she tees it up next week in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur for the first time. At a recent practice round at Augusta National, Frye hit 7-iron into the par-5 13th for her second shot and 6-iron into the par-5 15th. She’s not certain who will caddie for her at Champions Retreat (site of the first two rounds) and Augusta National, though Scott is possibility. Scott won the Masters with Scheffler last year and twice before with Bubba Watson.
“He told me the most underrated quality people that do well there have is great distance control with their approach shots,” said Frye. “So I’ve been working on that quite a bit, little TrackMan games, dialing in my carry numbers has been huge.”
Jensen Castle is honored at the Kentucky-Florida football game for winning the U.S. Women’s Amateur. (Photo by Grant Lee, Kentucky Athletics)
It wasn’t all that long ago that a wide-eyed Frye stood on the first tee at The Olympic Club where she was caddying for teammate Jensen Castle at the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open. Frye thinks she was more nervous than Castle that week, but seeing the best in the world up close inside the ropes gave Frye the belief she could do it, too.
“Dang it, I want to get here,” said Frye, who qualified for her first Women’s Open the next year at Pine Needles.
While Frye grew up in Lexington and a had a grandfather who played golf for the Wildcats, Castle, 22, says “never in a million years” did she think she’d end up at Kentucky. Castle committed to the Wildcats 29 days before she signed. Her other option was the University of Indianapolis, a decorated Division II school.
“They took a chance on me,” said Castle, who won the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur and finished T-12 at last year’s ANWA.
Borst said the team recently came home on a redeye to find someone standing at baggage claim asking Castle to take a picture with his daughter. Castle, who is in the midst of five consecutive top-10 finishes for the Wildcats, graduated last December with a degree in marketing and plans to stay a fifth year to finish her master’s in marketing management.
“This is what I live for,” said Castle of the crammed schedule that leads up to Augusta and beyond.
She’s still riding a high of gratefulness after slipping in the shower in January and being forced to sit out for month with a concussion. Castle didn’t realize right away how much she’d injured herself and immediately went out and played volleyball for three hours.
“For a five-day stretch I couldn’t get out of bed I was throwing up so much,” she said.
Castle will carry that thankful attitude into Augusta, where she was just getting over the flu last year when she arrived in Georgia fresh off an 81 at the Clemson Invitational.
“I obviously went into ANWA with no expectations,” she said.
Though that is far from the case this year.
Castle, whose strengths are short game and putting, said she gets plenty of motivation from Frye’s continued rise, describing her as an underdog when she walked on campus. Frye came into college No. 2,191 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. She’s now 75th.
“She just started spitting fire the first tournament,” said Castle of Frye’s share of sixth in her first event, the Blessings Collegiate Invitational.
Borst said the way Frye played last fall, she could’ve won every week. She changed clubs over the winter and it’s been an adjustment.
Scottie Scheffler and caddie Ted Scott during the third round of the 2022 Masters at Augusta National Golf Club. (Photo: Danielle Parhizkaran-Augusta Chronicle/USA TODAY Sports)
Frye’s connection with Scott dates back to a Christian golf conference in Lexington about a decade ago. Scott stayed at the Frye home when Laney was about 10 years old and had kept in touch with the family over the years.
When it came time to find a fresh approach, the Fryes reached out to Scott, who at the time was going into coaching full time. He has since, of course, gone back to caddying for Scheffler, so Frye and Scott meet up at PGA Tour events, which is especially fun for someone like Frye, who Borst said “eats, breathes and lives golf.”
When the Kentucky team was in Palos Verdes, California, earlier this spring for a tournament, Frye stayed behind to watch the Genesis Invitational and work with Scott. While there she played Los Angeles Country Club and Bel-Air Country Club, site of this year’s U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Amateur, respectively.
“She’s got the tools to do it,” said Scott. “It’s just a matter of ‘Hey, can I do it when it matters?’ That’s what we’re all trying to figure out how to do, right?”
Golfweek’s Adam Schupak contributed to this article.
Others are salvaging the final days of their summers, spending time at the pool or doing whatever to distract themselves of the impending return to school this fall. Zhao, however, is dominating one of the premier women’s amateur golf events in the world.
Zhao earned co-medalist honors at the 122nd U.S. Women’s Amateur at Chambers Bay in University Place, Washington. After 36 holes of stroke play, Zhao sat at 10-under 136, tied with Latanna Stone and Laney Frye. The trio will occupy the top three seeds when match play begins Wednesday with the round of 64.
Stone earned the first seed for match play after firing a 8-under 65, a new women’s competitive record at Chambers Bay.
“Just like yesterday, everything was working well,” Stone said. “I was hitting the ball great and putted really well. Putting kind of saved me a little bit today. But it’s just fairways and greens and keeping it simple. I’m really pumped for match play. I think I can play really aggressive – even more aggressive than I did in stroke play. Yeah, I’m excited.”
Zhao, who shot 6-under 67 in the opening round, was 4 under on Tuesday. Frye was consistent, shooting two rounds of 5-under 68.
Stone will be the top-seeded player in match play, with Zhao earning the second seed and Frye the third.
“I had a couple of mistakes, but otherwise I played pretty solid today,” Zhao, from China, said. “I think I missed two short birdie putts. I really like match play, so hopefully I can put together another couple good rounds.”
Defending champion Jensen Castle, who will be a senior at Kentucky, shot 4-under 69 in the second round to finish in a tie for 14th after stroke play. Rachel Heck, the top-ranked player in the field, finished tied for 46th at 2 over. Megha Ganne, an incoming freshman at Stanford, is in a tie for fourth at 7 under.
Stroke play isn’t quite over yet, however. There was an 8-for-4 playoff to determine the final match play spots that began on the par-4 10th hole. Jieni Li, Jennifer Rosenberg and Camryn Carreon all made par to qualify. Alice Hodge was eliminated with a double bogey, and Victoria Zheng, Julia Misemer, Emma Abramson and Anika Dy made bogey to move on to the second playoff hole.
Playing the par-3 17th, all but Abramson made par, and the playoff was suspended due to darkness. It will resume at 10:30 a.m. ET Wednesday with Zheng, Misemer and Dy playing the par-5 18th hole to determine who earns the final match play spot.
Nine college golfers not yet 19 are at the U.S. Girls’ Junior this week to say goodbye to junior golf and reunite with old friends.
Six weeks ago, Alice Hodge and her Florida State teammates were doing cartwheels on the lawn of the Hyatt Regency in Scottsdale, Arizona. It felt that good to be in the desert for the NCAA Women’s Championship.
“We were just running around the hotel like a bunch of kids,” Hodge said. “We just had such a great time. I just really enjoyed being there with my team.”
The Seminoles had won the NCAA Louisville Regional two weeks earlier as underdogs. They were given a poster to hold that day proclaiming them regional champs and Hodge & Co. flew it home with its own seat on the plane.
“It caused a scene in the airport,” she said.
It’s good to be a college golfer.
Day-to-day, Hodge played and competed more as a freshman at Florida State than she has at any point before in her golf career. If there’s one thing that gives her a leg up at the U.S. Girls’ Junior this week at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Maryland, it’s that.
Championship stipulations allow for players to compete in the Girls’ Junior, arguably the premier junior girls event of the summer, provided they have not reached their 19th birthday on or before July 17. College experience doesn’t figure in.
Amid the 156-player field teeing it up this week are eight other players like Hodge who have a season of college golf under their belt. And why not? Among the perks for the winner this week is a U.S. Women’s Open berth in 2022.
“I’m young for my grade so I grew up playing junior golf with a lot of these girls despite being a grade older than them so I’m still pretty friendly with the field, I still feel like I know a good chunk of the girls,” she said.
Alice Hodge of #FSU golf shoots a 2 under par 70 to win the U.S. Girls’ Junior Amateur qualifier at Bonnie Briar Country Club in her hometown of Larchmont, N.Y. She will play in the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship July 12-17 at Columbia Country Club in Maryland. pic.twitter.com/xOR3Y0h8sQ
Interestingly, Hodge’s older sister Caroline, who also attended Florida State, did the same thing in 2019, when there were also nine collegians in the Girls’ Junior field.
Florida State ended the spring by narrowly missing the match-play bracket at the NCAA Women’s Championship and landed a season-ending position of 11th in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings. Hodge teed it up eight times (in other words, in every tournament – Florida State, which competes in the ACC, wasn’t allowed to compete in the fall because of COVID-19). A one-on-one followed with her coaches after each event. Consistency was a theme.
“They would just say you’re so consistent, you’re reliable and that’s really helped a lot of the other girls relax,” Hodge remembered. “I think my consistency is definitely an advantage just because I might not go low a lot of the time but I’m pretty steady.”
Hodge grew up in Larchmont, New York, not far from famed courses like Winged Foot, Quaker Ridge and Westchester, where the U.S. Women’s Amateur will be played later this month (Hodge wasn’t able to get through qualifying for that event). In high school, sometimes she’d play high school matches on Winged Foot’s front nine.
Having played in the 2017 Girls’ Junior, Hodge knows that when you have the opportunity to play a USGA event, you take it – especially if it’s a sort of second chance.
“Especially because I didn’t get to play last year,” Hodge said, referencing this event’s cancellation because of COVID-19, “I didn’t get to have that last junior golf senior season that I was looking forward to.”
Caroline Hwang, who wrapped up her freshman season at Pepperdine in May after winning the individual title at the West Coast Conference, was in the same boat. But the 18-year-old thinks that given her eligibility, she would have tried to qualify for this year’s event regardless. This week is a chance to see all her friends from junior golf one more time – it’s a reunion week in addition to a tough tournament.
“This is like one of the biggest junior events,” she said, “and I’m not 19 yet so I feel like this is my last chance to prove myself at this stage before I completely transition out of junior golf.”
— Pepperdine Women's Golf (@WavesGolf) June 22, 2021
Hwang grew up in Orlando, Florida, attending Olympia High School before switching to virtual school halfway through her sophomore year to focus more on golf. Her family moved cross-country last year when Hwang started at Pepperdine. Her trainer and coaches were already in the Los Angeles area, so it made sense to relocate.
Regardless, a change of scenery helped Hwang grow up in a way that might benefit her game this week. As a freshman, she played every event for Pepperdine and was a leading scorer. Freshman teammate Lion Higo is also in the Girls’ Junior field.
“College competition is a little bit different and you have to – I feel like I matured a little bit too from a few years ago,” she said.
For Kentucky’s Laney Frye, this would be a win-win week no matter where she decided to tee it up. After qualifying into the Girls’ Junior, Frye’s choices were a USGA championship or the North & South Women’s Amateur.
“My swing coach always tells me there’s nothing like a USGA event,” she said.
Frye, from Lexington, Kentucky, gushes about her first year of college golf. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a more SEC-concentrated schedule than usual. That began in October with the Blessings Intercollegiate. It was a televised co-ed championship on a former national championship venue and Frye was blown away. She finished T6.
Annabelle Pancake hugs Laney Frye, right, after Frye won the girls’ division of the inaugural Dye National Junior Invitational at Crooked Stick Golf Club. (Photo by Jenna Watson/IndyStar)
“Two years ago (the U.S. Girls’ Junior) was probably the biggest tournament I’d played at the time,” she said. “Was just kind of star-struck. Even though it was the summer after my junior year, I felt like I belonged but not quite to the same extent that I do now after playing in all SEC fields for a year.
“The depth of the tournaments that I’ve been playing in and the leaders at them, they really know how to play. I’ve just been exposed to that year-round, thanks to college.”
Kentucky’s year ended with a trip to the NCAA Women’s Championship. Frye & Co. became the first Wildcat team to advance to play for a national title since 1992.
“That was big-time,” she said. “I think it was 29 years so that was a good amount of time before I was even born since we had been.”
Frye and Kentucky teammate Maria Villanueva qualified for the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball in April, but when they bowed out before match play, they picked up the bags for two more Wildcats, Jensen Castle and Marissa Wenzler. It was a nice match-play refresher for Frye, even if it wasn’t first-hand.
Frye won the Dye Junior Invitational last summer, what she called the highlight of her junior career, and has the same caddie on this bag this week as she did for that tournament at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Indiana. Harrison Lane is a family friend and recent graduate from Transylvania, where he played college golf.
One thing she never accomplished as a junior? Winning an AJGA event. Asked if a USGA title this week might make up for that, Frye had two words: “No doubt.”
