Tag: Samantha Wagner

Dewi Weber, denied an Olympic spot, records seven straight birdies for a second day in a row, leads LPGA’s Portland Classic

“I’m disappointed obviously, but it’s a chapter that for me I’ve closed.”

The LPGA record for most consecutive birdies is nine and for a second day in a row, Dewi Weber made a run at that mark.

During Thursday’s first round of the Portland Classic, Weber birdied Nos. 2 through 8 en route to a 6-under 66. On Friday, she birdied Nos. 5 through 11 on her way to a 10-under 62 and sole possession of the lead at Columbia Edgewater Country Club.

Weber qualified for the Summer Olympics but the Dutch Federation chose not to send her nor male golfers Joost Luiten and Darius van Driel to the Games on the belief there was not a realistic chance any of them contend for a medal.

Weber, an Epson Tour member playing in just her second LPGA tournament in 2024, has 17 birdies and one bogey so far this week.

She was asked about the Olympics after her round, about whether not being in Paris has been on her mind.

“Not much,” she said. “Like, I can tell that, yea, I’m trying to make a statement here. Not much. I’m just trying to play golf.”

After a similar follow-up question, Weber said, “I’m disappointed obviously, but it’s a chapter that for me I’ve closed. Listen, if I win on Sunday, like I think that would make a statement obviously, but it’s not as if I’m trying to play here to make a point. The point I’m trying to make is that I’m a good golfer and good enough to be on the LPGA Tour, because I’ve been on Epson this entire year. So that’s more the point I’m trying to make I guess for myself, than, ‘See, look, I should’ve been at the Olympics.'”

A shot back on the leaderboard is Andrea Lee, who posted a 9-under 63 to hold the clubhouse lead for a while Friday. Playing the back nine first, Lee had a birdies streak of her own – six straight – on Nos. 11-16 and made the turn in 30.

“It means my game is in the right place,” she said of her first-nine birdie run. “I wasn’t even really thinking about the birdie streak to be honest. I was so focused. Then I think I chipped it in on 16 and that was my sixth birdie in a row and I was like, my gosh. So it was a pretty cool run.”

Lee, the 2022 champion of this event, tied for third at the U.S. Women’s Open in May but has a missed cut, a solo 62nd and a tie for 45th since then. Overall this season, though, Lee has four top-20s and she’s 23rd in the Race to CME points standings. She’s also seventh in Solheim Cup points.

Polly Mack, who led after Day 1, shot 67 late in the day to get to 14 under and is tied with Lee, two shots back of the lead. Jenny Shin and Grace Kim are tied for fourth at 13 under.

Last week’s winner, Lauren Coughlin, is tied for 18th at 9 under. Last year’s Portland Classic champ, Chanettee Wannasaen, is tied for is tied for 42nd at 6 under.

After this event, the LPGA pauses for the Olympic Games, with the women’s competition starting Wednesday, Aug. 7.

Polly Mack, the longest player on the LPGA, leads in Portland with Russian rookie chasing

Mack called it “pretty flawless.”

Polly Mack called it “pretty flawless.” The 25-year-old LPGA sophomore opened the Portland Classic with a career-low 9-under 63 to pace the field early at the longest-running non-major tournament on tour.

Kathy Whitworth won the first Portland Classic in 1972. A dozen past champions of the event are in the LPGA Hall of Fame.

“It feels so good,” said Mack. “Feels like I’ve been working for almost years for this kind of stuff to happen. Just finally to see a result on the scorecard, not just in the game, on the course, but also seeing it written down is really, really nice.

“I’m sure my team behind me is as happy as I am right now.”

Germany’s Mack, who leads the tour in driving distance at 284 yards, has missed 10 of 13 cuts so far this season and currently ranks 419th in the world. With so many top players prepping for next week’s Olympic Games in Paris, it’s a good opportunity to players to make big moves toward securing their cards. Mack came into this week 140th on the CME points list. The top 100 players secure their cards for next year.

“It seemed so easy out there today,” said Mack of round that included seven birdies and an eagle at Columbia Edgewater Country Club.

A trio of players sit one back at 8 under, including Samantha Wagner, a 27-year-old making her first start on the LPGA this season after losing her status last year.

Wagner was in Costco buying some stuff for her mother in Orlando, Florida, when she got the email that she was in the field this week across the country. She and her father, who doubles as her caddie, got on a plane about 12 hours later.

“It’s certainly tough out there,” said Wagner of her time back on the Epson Tour. “Coming back from a year on the LPGA I didn’t really know what to expect, but the field has been tough every week. Play has been really great.

“I mean, cuts have been just as low as LPGA, so it’s definitely a challenge.”

Wagner is currently 49th on the Epson Tour’s Race for the Card. Players who finish in the top 15 earn LPGA membership for next season.

2024 Portland Classic
Nataliya Guseva plays her shot from the 14th tee during the first round of the 2024 Portland Classic at Columbia Edgewater Country Club. (Alika Jenner/Getty Images)

Russian rookie Nataliya Guseva, who recorded her third top 10 of the season last week in Canada, joins Wagner and South Korea’s Hyo Joon Jang in a share of second.

“I was just really enjoying myself on the golf course,” said Guseva. “That was probably one of the best times for me on the LPGA, like on the golf course when I was just really, you know, like going, talking, not even paying attention to my game. I was just like hitting it well and knocking it in, so it’s always nice when you get into that momentum.”

The 21-year-old played collegiate golf at Miami and earned LPGA status with a T-23 finish at LPGA Q-Series last December.

Last week’s winner, Lauren Coughlin, is back in the mix after an opening 66. Coughlin, 31, won for the first time in her 101st LPGA start as a member at the CPKC Women’s Open. Coughlin didn’t make a single bogey on Thursday.

The biggest challenge of the week so far, she said, was coming down from the high of Sunday and finding a way to reset.

“I hit the ball extremely well,” said Coughlin. “Stayed super patient. Finally got some putts to drop on the back nine. Yeah, no, it was a good round especially considering last week. Very happy.”

Samantha Wagner self-reported a rules violation last year at LPGA Q-Series and missed the cut by one stroke. Now she’s tour-bound

It was a group effort on Sunday for Wagner, who had her dad on the bag, mom in the gallery and brother on the phone.

Samantha Wagner called Sunday at LPGA Q-Series a group effort. Her dad was on the bag, her mom was in the gallery and her brother was on FaceTime as she came down the 144th hole.

“I tried not to cry all day,” said a relieved Wagner.

At age 26, the former University of Florida player has at long last wrapped her hands around an LPGA card. What a difference a year makes.

Wagner’s efforts at last year’s Q-Series came to an early end after she called a penalty on herself and missed the first cut by just a single stroke.

Samantha Wagner of the United States and her mom embrace after the final round of the 2022 LPGA Q-Series – Dothan at Highland Oaks Golf Course on December 11, 2022 in Dothan, Alabama. (Photo by Hannah Ruhoff/Getty Images)

“It was the sixth hole of the first round,” Wagner recalled to EpsonTour.com earlier this year. “I think I was 1 under at that point. I hit a good shot into the par five and I walked up, and I had my hands full. I had my yardage book and a tee to fix my ball mark and my caddie was waiting for me to throw him the ball. And I just picked it up. I literally had gotten 6 inches off the ground with it, and I was like, ‘Ah, shoot.’ I put it back down, marked it, no one had seen it. I knew right away it was wrong.”

After she finished out the hole, Wagner walked over to playing partner Maddie McCrary and told her what happened. No one else had seen the violation. They called over a rules official to confirm the penalty.

“After that it kind of got away from me the rest of the week,” said Wagner, “and I missed the first cut by a shot, and you could nitpick 10 different holes out of that. But one thing I just had never counted on was like losing my mind for five seconds.”

Wagner, whose rookie year on the Epson Tour was 2018, finished 31st on the money list this season. She closed the season with five top-35 finishes, including a pair of top 10s to play her way into this year’s Q-Series.

“There is definitely a lot of emotions going back into last week,” said Wagner after play wrapped up on Sunday at Magnolia Grove in Mobile, Alabama.

“I think last week I literally would walk on every green with the ball marker in my hand. I was like, we’re not doing that again.”

Samantha Wagner of the United States and her caddy chat on the green during the sixth round of the 2022 LPGA Q-Series – Dothan at Highland Oaks Golf Course on December 9, 2022 in Dothan, Alabama. (Photo by Hannah Ruhoff/Getty Images)

Last year, Wagner felt like she rushed a lot of things and got too excited. This year, she came into the eight-round grind with a more level approach. She finished the fortnight in a share of sixth, one of 20 players in the field to earn category 14 status on the priority list. A total of 46 players earned LPGA cards, with those outside the top 20 falling in category 15.

Players in category 14 will be ranked higher on the priority status list that fills tournament fields. Players are listed in the order of their finish at Q-Series.

“I’m so excited,” said Wagner. “It’s just been a long journey. That’s what everyone here is working for. For me, I know I can compete there and I’m really excited to have the chance now.”

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Stuck at Home With: Symetra Tour player Samantha Wagner

Like the rest of the golf world, Samantha Wagner is grounded for the time being, waiting to get back into form on the Symetra Tour.

The “Stuck at Home With” series profiles players, caddies and staff in the women’s game who are making the most of an unprecedented break in tour life due to the coronavirus pandemic. New stories will be posted every Tuesday and Thursday.

Samantha Wagner had put a brand new set of clubs – Callaways – in her bag for this 2020 season. She had spent the last few months overhauling her swing with a new instructor on the other side of the country. After two years learning the ropes on the Symetra Tour, this figured to be a big year on her climb to the LPGA.

It’s what makes the waiting these past few weeks so much harder.

Like the rest of the professional golf world, Wagner is grounded at least until mid-June, which is the anticipated restart date for the Symetra Tour. It’s one thing for an established player to take a forced break in her career, but it’s something entirely different to be on the kind of launch path that Wagner felt herself on, only to have it come to an abrupt stop.

“It feels like the off-season,” said Wagner, an Orlando-based player slated to make a solo trip to California right before the coronavirus brought the country to a screeching halt.

It’s a steep learning curve going from college to professional golf. Wagner, 23, played two seasons at the University of Florida before making her pro debut at the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open. After two more professional starts, Wagner advanced all the way to final stage of Q-School that fall but came up short of any LPGA status.

In her first Symetra Tour season in 2018, Wagner made the cut in more than half of her 20 starts. She had back-to-back top 10s in June. It was important to learn how to mentally deal with knowing exactly how much money she needed to land an LPGA card (only the top 10 money earners do that).

“You’re thinking, ‘If I have three top-20 finishes or better, obviously I’m not sure what everyone else is going to do, but it’s going to be close,’” she said. “You’ve got it in your head and you’re playing with that. It’s hard to stop yourself from doing it.”

Wagner was inside a tightly packed top 30 with three tournaments left that season, but ultimately landed in 50th on the year-end money list. Life goes on.

The Wagner family is a tight-knit one. Milestones are shared. So after Wagner’s older brother C.J. proposed to his girlfriend Madison at the end of 2018, their Oct. 25 wedding date went down on the calendar with a big circle. The only problem was, as Wagner later confirmed, it was going to fall right on top of the LPGA Q-Series.

Family discussions ensued, and C.J. assured his sister he’d understand if she couldn’t be there. It became hard to focus on the golf.

“In my heart, I knew where I wanted to be,” she said. “All year, it was like, ‘If I don’t play well here, it’s just making my chances of being at his wedding worse.’”

Samantha Wagner and her brother C.J.

Ultimately, Wagner missed the last eight cuts of the 2019 season, decided not to enter Q-School and doesn’t regret her decision for a second. The weekend marked two new beginnings: a new marriage for C.J., and a game overhaul for Samantha.

If there’s a silver lining in this shutdown, it’s that the extended break has given Wagner time to groove a brand-new swing, built with help from California-based instructor Chris Mayson. Her decision to change coaches “was my first adult thing,” Wagner says, considering Mayson is her first instructor who didn’t know her as a teenager.

He took one look at her swing – which involved an over-the-top, drop-it-inside move – and told her he wasn’t sure how she was making contact.

“I know I struggled mentally with all the stuff about the wedding last year, but my swing was really off as well,” she said.

Wagner made such monumental changes that she spent an initial six weeks on the range adjusting, “which I have not done ever in my life,” she said. She has tested it only once in competition, at an Eggland’s Best Tour event in Daytona Beach in January. She finished fourth.

Samantha Wagner practicing in her down time.

As this break from competitive golf drags on, Wagner’s mom Amy has had much-needed words of wisdom.

“Pick something to work on,” she told the whole family.

For Samantha, that means blogging. She made her first post on a new blog site on March 29.

“It’s exciting,” Wagner said of her writing. “I feel like it’s something I’ve been going back and forth on wanting to do. I never knew where to start.”

She has a stack of books to read, too, and is considering taking a class to earn her real estate license. The family brought home a new Golden Retriever puppy, Yoddha, last month, too. Despite all the distractions, a feeling of suspense persists.

“The first two years, I had two things that were in my control with school and my brother’s wedding. And it’s not just me. I have friends all over the country and all over the world, some aren’t even playing.

“We’re all just waiting.”

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