“It doesn’t surprise me at all that she’s playing well and hitting the ball well.”
Sabrina Coffman of Toledo, Ohio, and Jacqueline Setas of East Lansing, Michigan, each finished the stroke-play portion of the 37th U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at 3 over to tie for medalist honors.
They’re two of the 64 golfers who advanced to the match-play drama at Brae Burn Country Club in West Newton, Massachusetts.
Among those who made the Round of 64 is Alexandra Austin of Fairfax, Virginia, who is six months pregnant. She tied for third in stroke play and was the fourth seed for match play, where she won her Monday match against Olivia Herrick of Hugo, Minnesota, 4 and 3.
Austin was a quarterfinalist at the 2023 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur, earning her an exemption this year, and now she’s moving on to the Round of 32 in the 14th of 16 USGA championships in 2024.
“I’m not surprised that she’s playing well. When I was pregnant, I found it to be some of the best ballstriking I’ve ever had because of how your body is, and you have a good idea of where your center of gravity is. I wasn’t hitting it as far, but it was some of the best ballstriking, so it doesn’t surprise me at all that she’s playing well and hitting the ball well, and this is a course where you really need to do that,” said two-time champion Julia Potter-Bobb on Austin’s success in this year’s event.
The championship concludes Thursday with an 18-hole final.
“I, especially as a mom, am super grateful. It was hard to come back after giving birth, I never thought this would happen.”
NAPLES, Florida — Krissy Carman of Eugene, Oregon, may have had Mickey Mouse on her mind, but Fiddlesticks Country Club was her happiest place on earth Thursday afternoon.
Carman two-putted the 17th hole for par to win the 35th US Women’s Mid-Am Championship 2-and-1 over Aliea Clark of New York.
“We’re going to Disney World!” cheered Carman, who was greeted by her family wearing matching Hawaiian shirts and received a big hug from her two-year-old son Conrad on the 17th green.
“I, especially as a mom, am super grateful. It was hard to come back after giving birth, I never thought this would happen but always hopped and look where we are now, wow!” said Carman, who became the first mother to win the title since Ellen Port in 2011.
Aliea Clark, left and Krissy Carman with the trophy before the start of the final round at the 2022 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Fiddlesticks Country Club (Long Mean Course) in Fort Myers on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. (Photo by Darren Carroll, USGA)
Although not going her way, Clark said she was happy to reach the final again. The 26-year-old reached the 2021 final as a No. 64 seed and joins Page Marsh Lea (1988-89) as the only players to lose consecutive championship matches in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur.
“I’m thankful for the opportunity, and I absolutely love each girl I played against this week,” Clark said. “They are quality individuals inside and out and I think I made genuine friends.”
Carman will have her name engraved on the Mildred Gardiner Punaret Trophy and punched her way to the U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach next July.
The win did not come easy.
Clark, 27, took the lead through three holes after making a par on hole one. Carman bogeyed, putting her 1-down before tying it back up on hole four with a respectable birdie. With both players being very consistent, Carman set herself up for another birdie, draining the putt on the seventh hole to go 1 up over Clark.
Clark fired back right away, taking advantage of her opponent’s mistakes of missing greens. These missed greens cost Carman pars on holes 8 and 9. Clark only had to make back-to-back pars to get herself from 1-down to 1-up.
Krissy Carman holds the trophy after winning the 2022 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Fiddlesticks Country Club (Long Mean Course) in Fort Myers on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. (Photo by Darren Carroll, USGA)
After hole 11, the match was all square until hole 15. Clark made bogey putting Carman 1-up with three to play.
Hole 16 was halved with two pars. Carman was first to tee off on the par-3 17th. Her shot was pin seeking but drawing left. The ball caught the skirt of the green and got a great kick towards the hole. Clark’s tee shot was looking good, right on line with the flag. Unfortunately, she came up just short, hitting the face of the bunker leaving her with a difficult shot.
Giving her best efforts to save par, Clark came up short, missing the putt and making a bogey.
“I practice putting all the time and you know you can’t win if the putts do not go in the hole,” said Clark.
“The putter was not working for me today. It sucks to have a match with no birdies on the scorecard, brutal.”
The course was set up to test and frustrate players and the tournament director Lora Nochta said it did just that.
“We focus on testing skill levels, driving accuracy, creativity and their mental game,” said Nochta. “We set this course up firm, fast and long making sure to alternate the course each day and to make it challenging for them.”
The 25-year old from Chattanooga, Tennessee, won the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur on Thursday in her first start in the championship.
Blakesly Brock hasn’t seen a U.S. Golf Association championship field for nine years. Back in 2012, she was just a 17-year-old competing in the 2012 U.S. Girls’ Junior. Now, in a whole new age bracket when it comes to USGA events, Brock is a USGA champion.
The 25-year-old from Chattanooga, Tennessee, won the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur on Thursday in her first start in the championship. She took down another tournament first-timer, Aliea Clark by a 5-and-4 margin in the final match at Berkeley Hall Club in Bluffton, South Carolina.
“I’m speechless,” Brock said. “This has been an absolute dream week for me. I’m so happy.”
Brock isn’t ranked in the World Amateur Golf Rankings, but she just won the Tennessee Women’s Mid-Amateur on Sept. 22, which set her up well for re-entering the world of USGA championships.
“I just had a feeling it was going to be my week,” she said. “I played great at the Tennessee Mid-Am, and I knew I was good enough to win this golf tournament. I came in not really expecting to win but knowing that I could, and that gave me a lot of confidence.”
Over the course of the week, Brock won three matches that went to extra holes – including over Megan Buck in the Round of 32, over 2019 runner-up Talia Campbell in the Round of 16 and over Clare Connelly in the quarterfinals.
Brock lamented letting go of a big lead in some of those matches but was proud of herself for dealing with what she called “the most pressure I’ve ever felt ever on a golf course.”
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
“It feels absolutely incredible. I’m so happy right now. I’m still in shock.”
Against Clark in Thursday’s final match, Brock won the first hole with a par but lost the second to Clark’s birdie. She caught fire a few holes later, winning Nos. 7 through 12 to build an insurmountable 5-up lead. The two players tied Nos. 13 and 14 with pars but Clark eventually ran out of holes.
Among the spoils of a U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur title is a spot in the following year’s U.S. Women’s Open. Brock will appear in the field in 2022 at Pine Needles in Southern Pines, North Carolina.
“I haven’t even thought about it,” she said when asked who she’d like to play a practice round with that week. “This is still kind of kicking in.”
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.
“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.”
