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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