Tag: Lauren Greenlief

Lauren Greenlief topped a new tournament for female mid-amateurs. She’s not stopping there.

Lauren Greenlief showed she’s at the top of the women’s mid-amateur game, but still has a plan outlined for how to get better this winter.

It’s monsoon season in South Florida – or at least it’s felt that way the past week. Lucky for Lauren Greenlief she’s banked so many winters working on her game in chilly Virginia that she was ready for the challenge.

Dye Preserve Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, was saturated before the inaugural Amateur Golf Alliance Women’s Amateur ever began on Oct. 1, and the rain kept coming.

Greenlief, who turned 30 in September, has often felt that in the mid-am game, her length serves as an advantage. That was perhaps amplified this week under the conditions. Her second-round 68 at Dye Preserve was five shots better than the next-lowest score (from a fellow Women’s Mid-Am champ, Julia Potter-Bobb) on a day when it rained most of the front nine.

Before the tournament, Greenlief had scouted out the venue with current Women’s Mid-Am champ Ina Kim-Schaad, who is a Dye Preserve member. She concentrated on lines and landing spots.

“I felt like it really was a good setup because I hit almost all the clubs in my bag, which is what you look for in a tournament,” Greenlief said.

Scores: Amateur Golf Alliance Women’s Amateur

She bookended that 68 with rounds of 73 and 75 for an even-par total that left her three ahead of Potter-Bobb, who hails from Indianapolis. Chelsea Dantonio of East Aurora, New York, was third.

Kim-Schaad finished sixth at 10 over.

The event was something of a labor of love brought to fruition by Tara Joy-Connelly (who finished inside the top 10). That wasn’t easy amid the coronavirus pandemic. The venue changed three times and the date was pushed back from its original May slot to October. But it was a necessary add to the calendar.

Men’s mid-amateurs have a stout schedule with stops at top venues all over the country, from the George L. Coleman at Seminole Golf Club to the Crump Cup at Pine Valley Golf Club.

After this week, the rest of the year is quiet for Greenlief. She doesn’t plan to tee it up again until the January or February, when the winter amateur circuit gets going again in Florida.

Greenlief took a leave of absence from her job at Boston Consulting Group in 2019 to play golf. Her world ranking dove to No. 115 and in December, she was among 12 players invited to a Curtis Cup practice session. That indicated she was among the players in consideration for a spot on the team that was to compete in the matches scheduled for May in Wales. It was one of her biggest goals.

The Curtis Cup was postponed to June 2021 in light of COVID. Greenlief plans to make another run at it. She’s not sure yet what that means, schedule-wise.

COVID made Greenlief’s 2020 competition schedule lighter than she intended. She competed in the Donna Andrews Invitational and the North & South Women’s Amateur but chose not to tee it up in the Ladies National Golf Association Amateur because it fell the week before the U.S. Women’s Amateur.

Greenlief was part of a playoff for match play at the Women’s Amateur, but ultimately fell on the second hole. She left that tournament disappointed in her putting, feeling like she had really only made one putt for the single birdie she logged in two days of stroke play. Since then, she charted out where she wanted to go with her game to remain competitive at the highest level.

On that list? Wedge work and increasing her swing speed to pick up an additional 10 to 15 yards of distance, considering that courses seem to be getting longer and longer.

“I’m in my 30s so if I don’t, I’m just going to get shorter,” she said of the latter.

Her strategy on the greens will be key. Greenlief calls herself a die-it-in putter but watching the players who have had success on her circuit, she realized she needed to be more aggressive.

“I’m going to try to roll the ball two feet by the hole,” she said. “Since I started changing my mindset to that, even in regular rounds playing back home, I’ve been making four to five birdies per round. This is the first tournament where I really put it to the test.”

Greenlief, a self-described planner in all aspects of her life, is hopeful she has keyed in on the right formula to come out firing in 2021. Greenlief 2.0 would be a force on all levels of women’s golf.

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Alexa Pano, Lauren Greenlief represent opposite ends of age spectrum at Curtis Cup practice session

The USGA’s International Team Selection Committee issued invitations to a total of 12 women for last weekend’s Curtis Cup practice session.

TAMARAC, Fla. – As Alexa Pano correctly noted, half the battle of making a Curtis Cup team is securing an invitation to the traditional practice session that takes place roughly six months before the actual team is selected. Pano has checked that box.

“It’s always been in the back of my mind, like, ‘Hey that’s something I’d really like to do,’” Pano said of potentially representing the U.S. in the 2020 Curtis Cup. “It felt really nice to get that call that I was going to be in the practice session because that’s halfway there.”

The USGA’s International Team Selection Committee issued invitations to a total of 12 women last month, ranging in age from 15 to 29, to attend the three-day practice session at Loblolly in Hobe Sound, Florida, from Dec. 15-17.

Pano and Lauren Greenlief, who happen to represent the polar ends of that age bracket, ducked out half a day early to tee it up in the Dixie Women’s Amateur roughly 75 miles south at the Woodlands Country Club. Pano is the defending champion while Greenlief is looking for tournament reps and one more shot at lifting her position in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.

Dixie Women’s Amateur: Leaderboard
Curtis Cup practice session: Full squad | Photos

It was a concentrated group at Loblolly, with only the highest-ranked Americans scoring an invitation. Wake Forest junior Emilia Migliaccio carried the highest ranking at No. 8, followed by No. 12 Kaitlyn Papp, a Texas junior, and No. 13 Rose Zhang, who is committed to play for Stanford.

“I feel like it was really good prep coming here being able to play with the best amateurs in the world and experiencing that with them,” Pano said. “Alternate shot and Curtis Cup formats and going overseas to represent the USA is always super fun so I’m looking forward to hopefully being there.”

Greenlief, the only mid-amateur among the group, has been working toward this her whole year, having taken a leave from her job at Boston Consulting Group to play a full summer of amateur golf.

“One of my favorite weekends of my golf career probably, just the caliber of players and all coming together to play alternate shot and fourballs and different formats with all top-50 players was really amazing,” Greenlief said of the practice session.

Sarah Ingram, a three-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion who appeared in three Curtis Cups as a player, will captain the team and was on site at Loblolly. A big part of the practice session is about relationships, player to player and captain to player.

“It was really a fun weekend to get to know each other’s games, get to know each other as people and bond a little bit,” Greenlief said. “I think all those things were accomplished.”

Kelly Tilghman, a former Golf Channel and NBC Sports broadcaster, spoke to the players at Lobolly about both golf (she played college golf for Duke) and her career in sports journalism.

Invitation to the Curtis Cup practice session does not guarantee selection to the eight-player U.S. team that will compete in June at Conwy Golf Club in Wales. Players not invited can also still be considered for inclusion on the team.

The USGA will automatically select the top three American players in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking on April 8, 2020. The remainder of the team will be selected the following week.

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USGA validates Lauren Greenlief’s summer of golf with Curtis Cup practice squad invite

Lauren Greenlief took a leave from her job to focus on competitive golf this year and earned her way onto the U.S. Curtis Cup practice squad

Lauren Greenlief looks at her golf career as having unfolded in reverse. Unless a player turns professional after graduation, her game typically does not get better with age and increasing work commitments.

“I took the non-conventional route to golf,” Greenlief said, “where I’ve actually improved tremendously since college.”

Greenlief’s scoring average has dropped by more than three shots a round since graduating from Virginia in 2012, where she played as a walk-on.

The 29-year-old is a fascinating study in what’s possible for a mid-amateur when work doesn’t get in the way. Since May, Greenlief has doubled down on her commitment to golf, taking a leave of absence from her day job as a principal at Boston Consulting Group to find out just how far she could go as an amateur.

Greenlief hoped that through that process, she could earn her way onto the U.S. Curtis Cup team as well as earn an invitation to the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

On Tuesday, she was named to the 12-woman U.S. Curtis Cup practice squad, where she’ll be the oldest player by eight years.

“I think getting the call from the USGA to recognize, hey you’ve had a great summer, you’ve been working really hard, we want to give you a chance to earn this spot, that was really validating,” Greenlief said.

A long rankings climb

Two years ago, Greenlief reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Women’s Amateur. It was the first time in six tries she had made match play in that event.

She was No. 1,288 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking at the start of that week in early August 2018. By the following May, she had moved inside the top 500.

The majority of the top 200 players in the world are juniors and college players, who have vastly more playing opportunities. Greenlief timed her leave to coincide with the summer amateur season. Since playing the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball in May, she has made 10 major amateur starts, ending with a semifinal run at the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur, a tournament she won in 2015. She climbed as high as No. 115 in the WAGR, and currently checks in at No. 136.

Lauren Greenlief on the 15th hole during the round of 16 at the 2019 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Forest Highlands Golf Club in Flagstaff, Ariz. (Copyright USGA/Darren Carroll)

Greenlief’s goal is the same as many of the mid-am contenders she goes up against in tournament play – to compete at the highest level while also balancing life commitments.

“I think there’s been a push from us the last couple of years to try to get more competitive events, try to have more to play for,” Greenlief said.

She has seen progress on that front, too. In 2017, the USGA created a U.S. Women’s Open exemption for the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur winner. In South Florida, Tara Joy-Connelly, a player in her own right who has 30 USGA starts under her belt, has rallied the amateur community to create a women’s amateur event for post-college players that awards WAGR points.

More opportunities for mid-amateurs

Connelly wants mid-amateur women to have more opportunities to showcase their talents. It has been a two-year labor of love, but the inaugural Women’s National Amateur Championship, a three-day stroke-play event sponsored by the Amateur Golf Alliance, is scheduled for May 27-30 at Loblolly Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Florida.

Interestingly, it’s the same venue as the Curtis Cup practice session.

“The guys got their act together and did something for themselves,” Connelly said, citing top mid-amateur events such as the Coleman Invitational at Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Florida and the George C. Thomas Invitational at Los Angeles Country Club.

So went the thinking for the Women’s National Amateur.

“Why don’t we just model it after one of the men’s tournaments?”

Connelly, who competes frequently in women’s amateur events, saw Greenlief’s selection to the Curtis Cup practice squad on Tuesday morning and flashed back to seeing her at tournaments throughout the summer season – not just competing but devoting time to the practice facilities afterward.

“She didn’t just do it, she really did it,” Connelly said.

Greenlief is now back to work at Boston Consulting Group. When she reflects on her summer, her decision was a good one.

“I try to do something every other year regardless just because the job I have is a lot of travel and it’s a lot of long hours,” she said. “For me it’s about finding my competitive edge in golf but it’s also a little bit about balance. Taking a step back to make this job sustainable.”

Age and experience

Among the 12 players on the practice squad, Greenlief brings perhaps the most experience in team golf, having played in the Virginia-Carolinas Women’s Team Matches each summer and appeared on three U.S. State Teams before the USGA retired that championship in 2017. She has also played the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball every year since its creation in 2015.

“That’s the place where I can add a lot of value to a team,” Greenlief said. “Post-college, there’s a lot of different opportunities to play team golf.”

A mid-amateur hasn’t played on a U.S. Curtis Cup team since 2008, when Meghan Stasi (nee Bolger) was part of the team that defeated Great Britain and Ireland at the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland.

Greenlief’s selection to the practice squad certainly changes her life for the next month, bringing more Thursday- and Friday-evening range sessions into play, and perhaps an impromptu weekend trip to Florida for the warmer weather.

“I’m really happy that I’ll be able to represent the mid-am contingent,” Greenlief said, “and show that there are folks that can still play after college.”

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