Tag: Pinnacle Country Club

After a month off, Ryann O’Toole contending again, this time at Walmart NW Arkansas Championship

After opening with a 7-under 64, Ryann O’Toole sits tied atop a crowded leaderboard.

Ryann O’Toole had a solo ninth-place finish in Portland a week ago. It was just her third top 10 this LPGA season. It was also the first tournament she played in a month.

A week later, after opening with a 7-under 64, O’Toole sits tied atop a crowded leaderboard at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship.

It sounds like the four weeks away from competition made for a nice reset.

“It just depends on where you are in life. Sometimes you’re just at a point where, ‘Hey, I got some personal stuff going on. I need to take some me time. Need to sort the brain out,'” she said.

“It’s hard to come out here and perform, especially if your mind is elsewhere. I was curious how that was going to be. I don’t like to usually take that many tournaments off, but sometimes it’s good. I guess it is showing itself now that it’s important.”

O’Toole is among six golfers tied for the lead after shooting 7-under rounds of 64, including Megan Khang, Yuka Saso, Lauren Coughlin from the early wave and later, Jeongeun Lee5 and Sei Young Kim, at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Arkansas. O’Toole was the only one of the six to par the par-5 18th hole; Coughlin was the only one to eagle it. The others all birdied it.

O’Toole did have six straight birdies on her front nine starting at No. 2 and had eight in all with just one bogey. Yet, after he round, she talked like she could’ve had more circles on her card.

“I definitely felt like I left a lot out there still,” she said after 18 holes of a 54-hole tournament. “Eight birdies, but I still felt like there was a ton left out there, especially on the back side.”

O’Toole, who hit all 18 greens, was among those in the early wave and she had a few ideas on how to fill the time Friday afternoon.

“Just going to do a cool-down practice, couple putts, hit some balls, and probably go check out Bentonville, get a tea somewhere, walk around. There is a lot to do here. Rogers, Arkansas is pretty fun. I do like coming here,” she said.

ESPN+ streaming coverage

Friday’s first round of TV coverage was tape-delayed on Golf Channel but the network will carry the second and final rounds.

In addition, for a second straight week, ESPN+ will have a “featured groups” coverage during both the morning and afternoon waves on all three tournament days.

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Trying to keep her card, American Sarah Burnham posts career-best round at LPGA NW Arkansas Championship

Burnham sits a single stroke behind leaders A Lim Kim, Katherine Kirk and Eun-Hee Ji.

Sarah Burnham knows the clock is ticking. The former Michigan State star sits 132nd in the Race to the CME Globe points standings and needs to climb quickly to avoid dusting off her Q-school syllabus at season’s end.

If Friday’s opening round of the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship is any indication, though, Burnham isn’t going down without a fight.

The two-time Big Ten Player of the Year put together the best round of her LPGA career just when she needed it most, finishing with a 64 at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Arkansas. With two rounds to play, she sits a single stroke behind A Lim Kim, Katherine Kirk and Eun-Hee Ji.

Knowing there are just a handful of tournaments remaining on the LPGA 2021 schedule, and with missed cuts in her last three events, Burnham’s parents made the trip to see their daughter — the first time they’d done so since seeing her post a previous best 66 at the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open at San Francisco’s Olympic Club.

“I kind of want to make sure their time is worthwhile out here. Because they don’t come a lot, but when they do I want them to enjoy themselves and I don’t want to play bad necessarily,” Burnham told LPGA.com. “But you can’t always control that. Maybe they are my lucky charm.”

There’s plenty of work to be done, however.

Kim got hot down the stretch on Friday, going even through the first six holes, but then posting five straight birdies. She also closed with an eagle.

Meanwhile, Kirk did it with a hot front, posting four birdies on the opening seven holes.

Others who opened with impressive rounds include Nasa Hataoka (65), Pajaree Anannarukarn (66), Ariya Jutanugarn (66). Americans Jennifer Kupcho and Stacy Lewis each opened with rounds of 67, as did local favorite Brooke Matthews, an amateur from Arkansas.

For Burnham, though, she can’t worry about the field and instead needs to focus on her own game.

“I think everything happens for a reason,” said Burnham. “It does weigh on me a little bit, but whether I have to go back to Q-School or not, just see how these next four weeks go.”

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Austin Ernst ends LPGA victory drought by holding off Anna Nordqvist in Arkansas

Austin Ernst has not won on the LPGA since 2014, but she broke that streak Sunday at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship.

Austin Ernst has not won on the LPGA since 2014. But in breaking that streak Sunday evening at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, Ernst had to derail the ending of another such streak.

Ernst fired a closing 8-under 63 at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers, Arkansas. With a two-putt birdie on the par-5 closing hole, she effectively closed out Anna Nordqvist, who had taken the lead with a second-round 62 and was looking for her first LPGA win since 2017.

“It was long,” Ernst told Golf Channel of the break between her first LPGA victory and this, her second. “A lot longer than I thought it’d be.”

To be exact, it was 143 starts long.

Scores: Walmart NW Arkansas Championship

Ernst was one of many players who tried to take something positive out of the break in competition forced by a global pandemic. She worked hard on the putting green, even changing from a blade-style putter to a mallet.

“I just grinded on my putter and my wedges and driving the ball,” she said. “I think what’s held me back in the past was I didn’t hit quite as many fairways and I didn’t make as many putts.”

Ernst’s sole victory was at the 2014 Portland Classic, but another highlight of the 28-year-old’s career was her appearance in the 2017 Solheim Cup, where she compiled a 2-2-0 record. Interestingly, she played alongside Angela Stanford, an assistant captain for the 2021 Solheim Cup, in the final round at Arkansas.

The significance of that didn’t even cross Ernst’s mind, she said afterward. Still, she put on an impressive showing.

After starting the day in third, Ernst threw out 10 birdies on Sunday to combat two bogeys. Her final-round 63 followed up previous rounds of 65 and got her to 20 under, one better than Nordqvist.

For her part, Nordqvist hadn’t made a bogey all week until she reached the back nine on Sunday. She lost ground with bogeys at Nos. 12 and 14, but birdied No. 16 to have a chance coming up the final par 5. She needed a birdie there, but when she settled for par and a final-round 69, she found herself one shot short.

Stanford and Nelly Korda finished at 16 under, close behind on what became an exciting Sunday. Jenny Shin and Sei Young Kim tied for fifth another shot back.

There was another race going on in the final round at Arkansas, too. Two spots in the 2020 U.S. Women’s Open were on the line for players inside the top 10 who weren’t already in the field.

Shin claimed one of those, and the other went to Katherine Kirk, who secured a T-7 finish with a gutsy two-putt par on the 18th green. Kirk, of Australia, will play her 16th Women’s Open. It will be the 11th appearance for Shin, who finished T-10 in 2014.

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