Tag: Monica Vaughn

Oregon’s assistant coach, Monica Vaughn, has qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open

After nearly a dozen attempts, Oregon women’s assistant golf coach Monica Vaughn is into the U.S. Women’s Open.

Monica Vaughn feels like many of the officials who work for the Oregon Golf Association are extended family members. She’s known them, thanks to dozens of tournaments and USGA qualifiers, since she was 8 years old. Given that, who better to watch her qualify for her first U.S. Women’s Open – who better to hand over the coveted invitation – than someone like Brent Whittaker, the OGA’s Director of Tournament Operations?

“He’s been there for every OGA tournament win I’ve ever had,” Vaughn said. “It was really cool for him to get to pass over the invitation for the Open and to have that moment with him.”

Vaughn has tried for this nearly a dozen times, dating back to her early teenage years, when she was growing up in Reedsport, Oregon. The 36-hole U.S. Women’s Open qualifier on April 26 at OGA Golf Course in Woodburn, Oregon, just felt like her day. She opened with 9-under 63, followed up with a 71 and at 10 under, easily secured medalist honors and one of two available spots.

Vaughn’s boyfriend Justin Fisher caddied for her for the first time. She birdied four of her first five holes and decided she would keep trying to run in putts – even if they rolled three feet past the hole.

“The first round, I hit my irons so well, hit everything inside 12 feet and set myself up for success that day,” she said. “Feel like this whole 18 holes went so smoothly and I played so smart. I felt so calm because I felt like there was no way I was going to go and have a really bad round in the afternoon.”

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At the University of Oregon, where Vaughn is in her third season as the assistant women’s golf coach, her boss, head coach Derek Radley, was manning the hype – have the Sports Information department make graphics, spreading the news, being “the biggest cheerleader of all time.” When Vaughn called him the next morning, Radley wanted to go through the whole card.

“We talked for like an hour,” Vaughn said. “Just super supportive. Even from a recruiting standpoint, it’s really cool to blow it up and be like, ‘Hey, we’re competitive here, we’re good players. We support this, come play for us.’ ”

Nine years ago, Casey Martin, Oregon’s head men’s golf coach and a former PGA Tour player, qualified for the 2012 U.S. Open while coaching the Ducks. Interestingly, that championship also was played at Olympic Club.

Vaughn brings her golf clubs to team practice every day, but doesn’t always get a chance to work on her own game. She thinks she’s played 10 18-hole rounds so far this year. Before the qualifier, Vaughn had had a chance to get her distances dialed in on the TrackMan.

The U.S. Women’s Open qualifier was a quick turnaround from the Pac-12 Championship at Stanford (California) Golf Course, where Oregon finished T-5 as a team on April 25. At the end of the tournament, Vaughn took four players with her to Portland and another player not in the Pac-12 lineup met them there.

Vaughn tee off at 8:40 a.m., with two Ducks behind her and a third, Hsin-Yu Lu, who had withdrawn, walking with her teammates after withdrawing from the qualifier. During college tournaments, Vaughn and Radley want their players to wave encouragement from hole to hole whether that’s after a birdie or a bogey.

“The girls were clapping and cheering, I was waving at them,” Vaughn said of the qualifier. “I just feel like we were really feeding off each other’s energy.”

Oregon junior Tze-Han Lin finished at 2 under, one shot out of an alternate spot, while sophomore Ching-Tzu Chen finished at 4 over. Both players, along with Lu, hail from Taiwan.

“Team Taiwan really pumped me up,” Vaughn said, referencing the team nickname for those three players.

By the end of the day, Vaughn was already looking at pictures of Olympic Club in San Francisco, where the Women’s Open will be played June 3-6. She also exchanged texts with Missy Farr-Kaye, the head women’s golf coach at Arizona State, where she played college golf.

“I’m like, ‘Missy, I didn’t peak in college!’ ” Vaughn joked.

Despite winning the NCAA Championship – with her team and as an individual – in 2017 and making a Curtis Cup team, Vaughn never tried to play on the LPGA. In addition to coaching at Oregon, she also recently joined the Oregon Golf Association’s Board of Directors.

“I kind of felt like after I won the national championship in 2017 that was truly kind of the peak and the pinnacle,” Vaughn said. “I didn’t really know what my golf goals were after that.”

Goals and highlights keep shifting – Vaughn last made headlines for her own game when she shot 58 in a college fundraiser in October 2020 – but a spot in the U.S. Women’s Open is a universal currency.

“To go out and do this, definitely a top, top moment of my golf career.”

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Meet Monica Vaughn, the NCAA champ who just shot 58 and never tried to play on tour

Monica Vaughn won the 2017 NCAA title, never tried to play on the LPGA and is now the assistant coach at Oregon. Oh, and she just shot 58.

Monica Vaughn wanted the record to indicate that she shot 58 from the forward tees on Saturday at Eugene (Oregon) Country Club. The setting was a college fundraiser – think music blaring in the carts, adult beverages ­– and nothing like conditions at the 2016 NCAA Championship, hosted by Oregon.

The forward tees at Eugene measure 5,587 yards and from there, the course currently is playing to a par 71. Normally, it’s a par 72 but the par-4 11th is under construction and temporarily playing as a par 3.

Vaughn, 25, who has struggled with the yips for years, had 11 birdies and an eagle on the day with 25 putts.

“My wedges were on fire,” she said.

The Oregon women’s assistant began to feel the pressure mount as word spread and men’s head coach Casey Martin came out to watch along with his assistant, Brad Lanning.

“I don’t think I’ve felt this nervous since winning the national championship,” said Vaughn, who won the individual title in 2017 and then helped Arizona State win the team title, too.

She shot 8 under on the front nine and was 11 under through 13 holes. When Martin showed up, Vaughn went from fundraiser mojo to full-on player mode.

A snap-hook off the tee on the 14th and a blocked shot right on the 16th into the trees got her thinking, “Oh my goodness, I’m just trying to give this away.”

Shooting 59 had never been a goal of Vaughn’s. She two-putted from 70 feet on the 17th hole and, after a flushed drive up the last, wedged it to tap-in range for a course-record 58.

Martin gave her a big hug.

“I was like, I think I’m gonna cry now,” said Vaughn.

And so she did.

Since the day Vaughn pulled out of the first stage of LPGA Q-School (before it started), she has fielded the same question: Why didn’t you give the tour a shot?

The question has popped up often again since the 58.

The simplest answer is that pro golf was never a goal of Vaughn’s. From the day she committed to Arizona State, the goal was to win a national title. The pursuit of that goal, Vaughn admits, got a little unhealthy at times. But her storybook senior year ended with an individual title at both NCAA regionals and the NCAA Championship, with a team title at the latter.

That team aspect is important, too. Growing up playing volleyball and basketball in high school, Vaughn loved being part of a team. When she signed up for two mini-tour events in preparation for Q-School, she just didn’t feel it. Her heart couldn’t commit.

Vaughn withdrew from Q-School and took a job waitressing at Houston’s in Scottsdale.

“She’s extremely talented,” said ASU head coach Missy Farr-Kaye, “but you’ve got to want it.”

The drive and passion for the game started to return when Vaughn, who grew up in Reedsport, Oregon, took the job in Eugene in August 2018.

Her new goal is to follow in the footsteps of Farr-Kaye by winning nationals as a player, assistant coach and then head coach.

“I just think that would be the total trifecta,” she said.

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Because the Pac-12 isn’t competing this spring, only one Oregon player is on campus this semester. Eight weeks ago, Vaughn started Vision54’s SuperCoach54 program and said the 58 is no coincidence.

To get rid of the yips – which she even battled when she won nationals – Vaughn said she drastically cut down on the amount of information she was taking in over putts.

No practice strokes. She stopped looking at the putt from other angles. Her routine became as simple as mark it, clean it, look at the putt from behind the hole, focus on the speed, pick a line and go.

After the 58, Martin asked what she’d done differently. When she told him about her simplified routine, he said he’d been doing the same for years.

Last April, Vaughn got her amateur status back. She was hoping to try to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open this year and the U.S. Women’s Amateur, but COVID-19 kept that from happening.

There have been times, she said, when she asks herself the inevitable questions: Did I screw up? Should I have considered this harder?

In September, Vaughn caddied for Bailey Tardy at the Cambia Portland Classic and wondered if a week inside the ropes at an LPGA event would make her second-guess all over again.

Instead, she came back home to Eugene more confident than ever that she’d made the right call: “I have a freaking boatload of fun.”

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