Tag: WAGR

U.S. Walker Cup team is set for May matches at Seminole; includes 8 collegians, 3 returners from 2019

The 10-man U.S. Walker Cup team includes nine current college players and three players returning from the victorious 2019 U.S. squad.

With just more than two months until the 2021 Walker Cup match at Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Florida, the U.S. team has taken shape. On Monday, the U.S. Golf Association announced the full 10-man squad that will compete in the first Walker Cup to be held in the spring on U.S. soil.

Davis Thompson, Ricky Castillo and John Pak, as the three highest-ranked Americans in the WAGR, earned their spot on the team after the World Amateur Golf Ranking was updated on Feb.10 to reflect results from the previous weekend’s Jones Cup, a prestigious amateur event at Ocean Forest Golf Club in Sea Island, Georgia. The trio joined reigning U.S. Amateur champion Tyler Strafaci as the first selections to the team.

The remaining six players were later chosen by the USGA’s International Team Selection working group. Those players are Pierceson Coody, Quade Cummins, Austin Eckroat, Stewart Hagestad, Cole Hammer and William Mouw.

College Rankings
Men’s team | Men’s indiv. | Women’s team | Women’s indiv.

Hagestad, Hammer and Pak all return from the 2019 U.S. team that defeated Great Britain & Ireland at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England. Hagestad, the 2016 U.S. Mid-Am champ, and Strafaci, who did not return to Georgia Tech this spring, are the only non-collegians on the team.

Pak was arguably the man of the matches in 2019, going 3-0-0 (the only player on either team to go undefeated). The Florida State senior, who has since won two college events and finished as low amateur at the 2020 U.S. Open, came to the Walker Cup team in a decidedly different way than he did in 2019 in that he secured his spot early. A year and a half ago, Pak made six starts in a 10-week stretch, hitting all the major amateur events to make his case for inclusion. Ultimately he was one of the final selections, revealed after the end of the 2019 U.S. Amateur.

Castillo, now a sophomore at Florida, and Mouw, a sophomore at Pepperdine, seemed to be in the running for much of the summer of 2019, and likely were among the players who just missed a selection that year. Both were junior golfers then, on the cusp of college golf.

Castillo has spent time as the top-ranked player in the WAGR, but currently checks in at No. 6. He won twice in his abbreviated freshman season and has made the semifinals at the Western Amateur the past two years. Mouw set Pepperdine’s freshman record with five top-10 finishes and came back this fall with a pair of top 10s individually.

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As for Thompson, a Georgia senior who finished runner-up in his Jones Cup title defense last month, a Walker Cup pick has been all but guaranteed as he has maintained his position at or near the top of the WAGR for the past several weeks. He is currently ranked No. 1.

Thompson has won two college titles in the past two years, including the 2019 NCAA Athens Regional title, and was stroke-play medalist at the 2019 Western Amateur. He finished in the top 25 at the 2019 RSM Classic on the PGA Tour.

Cummins is the only fifth-year senior on the squad and is finishing up his career at the University of Oklahoma. He won the 2019 Pacific Coast Amateur and logged top-5 finishes at the 2019 Sunnehanna Amateur and in Western Amateur stroke play that year.

Coody, who is a teammate of Hammer’s at the University of Texas, won the Western Amateur in July 2020. Austin Eckroat, a junior at Oklahoma State, is ranked No. 15 in the WAGR and scored a top-15 finish at the PGA Tour’s Mayakoba Golf Classic in November.

McClure Meissner, a junior at SMU and the reigning Southern Amateur champion, and Garett Reband, another Oklahoma fifth-year senior, are the first and second alternatives, respectively.

Nathaniel Crosby, who in addition to guiding the 2019 victory also played on the winning U.S. team in the 1983 Walker Cup match, will return as captain.

“It is once again a great privilege to serve as the USA captain and to work with a group who represent the best of amateur golf,” said Crosby. “The 10 team members have a notable list of accomplishments on the collegiate, national and international levels. They will represent the United States in the spirit and tradition of the Walker Cup Match.”

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Walker Cup selection begins: Here’s when the next three players will be added to the U.S. team

A Walker Cup practice session just wrapped for U.S. team hopefuls, and now there’s a date for three WAGR selections to the team.

Days after a Walker Cup practice session wrapped up at Bay Hill Club in Orlando, Florida, the U.S. Golf Association’s International Team Selection Committee has set a date for the first round of U.S. team selections.

Selection criteria for a portion of the team remains the same for building the 2021 team. That begins with the three highest-ranked American players in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. The cutoff date for those exemptions will fall after the Feb. 10 WAGR update.

The 2021 Walker Cup match will be played earlier than usual, having been moved from its traditional early September date to May 8-9 – just before the NCAA golf postseason begins in earnest. The matches will be played at Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Florida, an ultra-private course that the golf world got a rare glimpse of in May 2020 when it hosted the TaylorMade Driving Relief exhibition match that featured Rickie Fowler, Matthew Wolff, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson.

Related: Check out the 16 players invited to a Walker Cup practice

So far, only one player has played his way onto the 10-man U.S. team. Tyler Strafaci accomplished that with his U.S. Amateur win at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Oregon, in August.

Nathaniel Crosby returns for his second captaincy after leading the Americans to victory at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England, in 2019. Crosby attended the Bay Hill practice session last week that included Strafaci and 15 Walker Cup hopefuls.

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U.S. Women’s Am champ Rose Zhang headlines 20 amateurs added to U.S. Women’s Open field

With a month to go before the 2020 U.S. Women’s Open, 20 amateurs earned exemptions into the field based on their position in the WAGR.

Amateurs at the Masters are one of the tournament’s great long-standing traditions. But amateurs at a major is not a storyline unique to Augusta National.

After the Masters ends on Sunday, there will be one last major on the 2020 calendar: the U.S. Women’s Open. Amateurs in this major present equally thrilling storylines. In 2019, Gina Kim finished T-12 at the Country Club of Charleston. She was 1 under and five shots back.

Earlier this fall at the ANA Inspiration, another LPGA major, Rose Zhang tied for 11th, just seven shots off the winning score of 15 under.

Zhang, who recently was named the Mark H. McCormack Medal winner for playing her way to the top spot in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, leads the list of amateurs who have earned an exemption into the U.S. Women’s Open, to be played Dec. 10-13 at Champions Golf Club in Houston.

The following 20 players earned exemptions based on their WAGR position as of Nov. 4 and will join the 156-player field for next month.

No. 1 Rose Zhang, of Irvine, Calif.
No. 2 Ingrid Lindblad, of Sweden
No. 3 Pauline Roussin-Bouchard, of France
No. 5 Linn Grant, of Sweden
No. 6 Emilia Migliaccio, of Cary, N.C.
No. 7 Alessia Nobilio, of Italy
No. 8 Ho Yu An, of Chinese Taipei
No. 11 Benedetta Moresco, of Italy
No. 12 Agathe Laisne, of France
No. 13 Maja Stark, of Sweden
No. 14 Lucie Malchirand, of France
No. 15 Beatrice Wallin, of Sweden
No. 16 Olivia Mehaffey, of Ireland
No. 17 Lily May Humphreys, on England
No. 19 Kaitlyn Papp, of Austin, Texas
No. 20 Emma Spitz, of Austria
No. 22 Caterina Don, of Italy
No. 23 Amelia Garvey, of New Zealand
No. 25 Auston Kim, of St. Augustine, Fla.
No. 27 Allisen Corpuz, of Honolulu, Hawaii

Thirteen of the 20 amateurs joining the field will be making their U.S. Women’s Open debut. Corpuz, a fifth-year senior at USC, is the only amateur playing in her third U.S. Women’s Open.

With the addition of these players, 24 amateurs are currently in the 2020 U.S. Women’s Open field. Gabriela Ruffels earned an exemption as last year’s U.S. Women’s Amateur champion. Also in 2019, Lei (Angelina) Ye (U.S. Girls’ Junior) and Ina Kim-Schaad (U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur) won USGA championships. Emily Toy won the 2019 Women’s Amateur Championship, conducted by The R&A.

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WAGR event aging will resume in July as summer amateur tournaments come back

After reviewing the number of upcoming elite amateur events, the USGA and R&A have decided to restart the WAGR event aging process.

The past week was a big one for amateur golf as the North & South played out at Pinehurst Nos. 2 and 4. The North & South Women’s Amateur will follow beginning July 14 and with that, the summer amateur calendar – albeit modified – is off and running in the U.S.

With play beginning to restart, the R&A and USGA have issued a joint update on the status of the World Amateur Golf Ranking. After reviewing the number of elite amateur events planned for the coming weeks, the governing bodies have decided to restart the aging process within the rankings system on July 8.

A player’s position in the WAGR is based on events in a rolling 104-week window. The WAGR underwent an algorithm change at the start of the year designed to make the ranking a better indication of a player’s current form. Under the new method, only points from events within the most recent 52 weeks of a player’s record count at full value. From there, event points are reduced proportionately, approximately two percent, per week before their removal after 104 weeks.

The USGA and R&A announced a pause in the tournament aging process on April 9, but rankings updates were still published each week to reflect other changes.

The WAGR is particularly important for players this year. Note that the rankings as of June 24 were used to determine WAGR-based exemptions into the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Women’s Amateur.

The top seven ranked male players in the WAGR (not otherwise qualified) as of Aug. 19 earn a spot in the U.S. Open. The top 20 women from the WAGR as of Nov. 4, 2020, who are not otherwise exempt within the top 100 of the ranking, will earn a spot in the U.S. Women’s Open.

Monday’s rankings announcement from the R&A and USGA also included new dates for determining the 2020 Mark H. McCormack Medal winners, an honor awarded to the top-ranked male and female player each year. The men’s medal-winner will be determined based on the Sept. 9 update (week 36) while the women’s medal-winner will be determined by Oct. 7 update (week 40).

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WAGR calculations adjusted as golf world remains on pause

The R&A and USGA have addressed how the current break in competition will be reflected in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.

When professional golf went on hiatus last month due to the coronavirus, rankings officials paused in place the Official World Golf Ranking and the Rolex Women’s World Golf Ranking. The R&A and USGA have now addressed how the current break in competition will be reflected in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. The two bodies have announced a pause in the ageing process for events on players’ records.

According to a statement from the governing bodies, the decision to pause the event ageing process “was made to ensure players who are unable to play are not unduly disadvantaged. During the ageing pause, a player’s average will not change unless their record has.”

A player’s position in the WAGR is based on events in a rolling 104-week window. The WAGR underwent an algorithm change at the start of the year designed to make the ranking a better indication of a player’s current form. Under the new method, only points from events within the most recent 52 weeks of a player’s record count at full value. From there, event points are reduced proportionately, approximately two percent, per week before their removal after 104 weeks.

The WAGR rankings will continue to be published each week to reflect any other changes. The rankings – and the competitive golf landscape in general – will continue to be monitored with the intent to restart the event ageing process from the point it was paused when golf returns.

Pauline Roussin-Bouchard, a freshman at the University of South Carolina, remains the top-ranked female amateur while Japan’s Takumi Kanaya, who was playing in the Masters this time last year as the reigning Asia-Pacific Amateur champion, tops the men’s ranking.

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USGA validates Lauren Greenlief’s summer of golf with Curtis Cup practice squad invite

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.

On Tuesday, she was named to the 12-woman U.S. Curtis Cup practice squad, where she’ll be the oldest player by eight years.

“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.”

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