Bernhard Langer extends Schwab Cup lead with PURE Championship win

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that to win at Pebble Beach one must make a move in the first seven holes, then hang on for dear life for the rest of the round (my apologies to Jane Austen.)  Jerry Kelly, the goateed Everyman of the senior circuit, came out of the blocks in just that fashion in the final round of the 2017 PURE Insurance Championship, opening his round birdie-birdie, and adding an eagle three on the par five 6th hole to pull into a tie with Saturday’s leader, Bernhard Langer, at the turn.

Tour points leader Langer, who started the day at 12-under and leading by one over Kenny Perry, found himself locked into a head-to-head struggle with Kelly, while Saturday’s pursuer, Perry, faded out of contention.

Annika Borrelli, 17, of Alamo, California, holds her finish after her second shot on hole #18 in the third round of the 2017 PURE Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Paired with six-time major winner Sir Nick Faldo, and representing The First Tee of the Tri-Valley, Borrelli, a senior at Carondelet High School in Concord, finished fifth in the pro/junior competition at the tournament. (Photo by author)

The rest of the field were playing for third as Langer and Kelly separated themselves from the pack over the opening nine, putting a three-to-four-stroke gap between themselves and the 51 players behind them.

Playing one group ahead of Langer, Kelly, who started the round three strokes out of the lead, made up the gap with his fast start, but Langer clung to his lead through the front nine despite a choppy run that saw two of his three birdies negated by a pair of bogeys.

Kelly’s play went a little flat after the turn, with pars and a lone birdie through fourteen, while Langer appeared to hit his stride (and put the lie to the aphorism I hauled out in the first paragraph) by putting up three more birdies, including back-to-back birdies at 13 and 14, to go two-up on Kelly with four holes left to play.

A lawn dart approach to two feet at #15 made Langer’s birdie run a triple, further opening the gap between himself and Kelly, who was playing solid golf but couldn’t buy a birdie putt.

Knowing that Kelly was hot on his heels through the turn, Langer said, “…it made me keep the pedal down and keep trying to make birdies and not just protect par, because that might not have been good enough.”

Langer coasted to victory with routine pars at 16, 17, and the spectacularly beautiful—but difficult—par-five 18th hole, to notch his thirty-fourth Champions Tour win with rounds of 64-67-67–198. The three-shot win is Langer’s fifth of the year, and his all-time best finish at Pebble Beach Golf Links.

Langer last played Pebble Beach in 2001, for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where he missed the cut. Previous to that, he played the Bing Crosby/AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am for a six-year stretch from 1985 to 1990, missing the cut in 1990, with best finishes of T3 and T4 in 1987 and 1988.

Despite falling short of the win, Jerry Kelly established a Champions Tour record this week. His rounds of 68, 66, and 67 put him at 14 consecutive rounds in the 60s, breaking the record of 13 set by Hale Irwin in 1999—and almost certainly locking up the PGA Tour Champions Rookie of the Year award (not an oxymoron…) for the 50-year-old from Madison, Wisconsin.

In junior results, two Junior Tour of Northern California players—Annika Borrelli of Alamo, representing The First Tee of the Tri-Valley; and Katie Harris, representing The First Tee of Greater Sacramento, finished 5th and T-6, respectively.

Borrelli, a 17-year-old senior at Carondelet High School in Concord, was paired with six-time major winner and World Golf Hall of Fame member Sir Nick Faldo. Asked about that experience she said, “It was awesome to be in the presence of a legend. When I was first paired with him I was in shock. My dad had always talked about him or I had watched him on TV, so to see his swing in person and right next to him—it was an incredible experience.”

Playing with pro tournament winner Bernhard Langer, Justin Potwora, representing The First Tee of Greater Portland, carded rounds of (net) 62, 67, and 65 to claim the Junior tournament victory.

The Langer/Potwora win marks only the third time in the tournament’s 13-year history that the pro winner was part of the winning pro/junior team; previous pro/pro-junior doubles were recorded by Craig Stadler in 2004, and Kirk Triplett, in 2014.

“Oh, Canada!” First All-Canadian USGA Final Comes in 2017 Senior Women’s Amateur Championship

13 September, 2017 – It was an historic day today for our neighbors to the north, at least in golf terms. For the first time in USGA history there will be two Canadian players – Judith Kyrinis and Terrill Samuel – battling it out in the final round of a USGA championship.

Judith Kyrinis and Terrill Samuel celebrate their all-Canadian final after Samuel, left, won in 19 holes during semifinal round of match play of the 2017 U.S. Senior Women's Amateur at Waverley Country Club in Portland, Ore. on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017. (Copyright USGA/Steven Gibbons)

The quarterfinal pairings made it mathematically possible, with four Americans and four Canadians in the mix – but with each pairing being USA vs Canada, guaranteeing that no player could eliminate a countrywoman.

The pairings split evenly, with eventual finalist Judith Kyrinis defeating Lisa McGill of Philadelphia, 2 and 1; Tara Fleming of Jersey City prevailing over Mary Ann Hayward of Canada, 3 and 2; the other eventual finalist Terrill Samuel eliminating Olympic Club member Patricia Cornett of Mill Valley, California, 5 and 3; and Honolulu’s Patricia Schremmer defeating Canadian Jackie Little, 2 and 1.

With a pair of international matches set up in the semifinals, it was again possible for a single-nation final to come about, and that’s exactly what happened.

Judith Kyrinis, of Toronto, went down to her American opponent early in the match, falling three behind Tara Fleming, a former LPGA Tour player who is now a reinstated amateur, by the fourth hole. Three wins late in the round allowed Kyrinis, 53, a registered nurse with three children, to square the match at the tenth hole before falling back at the eleventh with a bogey-4 to Fleming’s birdie. A win two holes later, and another pair of wins at the 16th and 17th holes gave the win to the Canadian

Toronto’s Terrill Samuel, 56, who had her 80-year-old mother on the bag, went four down to Patricia Schremmer, 51, of Honolulu – another former LPGA Tour player and reinstated amateur – after Schremmer won four holes straight, starting with #4. After splitting the last two holes of the front nine birdie-par, Samuel got one hole back at #10, and three holes later won a string of three straight, squaring the match at the fifteenth hole. Three more holes saw the pair finish regulation still square, Samuel winning on the first extra hole with a birdie to Schremmer’s par, clinching the pairing for the historic final.

Samuel had to get past Salinas, California, native Dr Patricia Cornett, 63, who now lives in Mill Valley, to advance out of the quarterfinal round. Cornett, a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who specializes in the field of non-malignant hematology, is an accomplished amateur golfer with a long history of USGA competition. Cornett has played in 60 USGA championships, beginning with the 1971 Girls’ Junior, at age 17, and was on two U.S. Curtis Cup squads – 1978 and 1988 – before taking the helm as captain in 2012.

One of the two finalists will join countrywomen Marlene Stewart Streit and Gayle Borthwick as Canadian champions of the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. Streit, the most recent Canadian to win the championship, in 2003, also won in 1985 and 1994; Borthwick is a two-time champion, winning the championship in 1996 and 1998.

NorCal’s Cowan and Cornett advance to Round of 32 in USGA Sr Women’s Amateur

Three Northern California players – Lynne Cowan, Pat Cornett, and Tina Barker – advanced from stroke play to match play in the 56th USGA Women’s Senior Amateur Championship at Waverley Country Club in Portland, Oregon, and two – Cowan and Cornett, have moved on to the Round of 32.

Patricia Cornett, of Mill Valley, a U.S. Curtis Cup player in 1978 and 1988 who captained the U.S. squad in 2012, is one of two Northern California golfers who advanced to the round of 32 at the 2017 U.S. Women’s Senior Amateur at Waverley Country Club in Portland, Oregon.
(USGA/Chris Keane)

Cowan, of Rocklin, is the assistant women’s golf coach at UC Davis. A player with an impressive record in local, state, and national competition, Cowan shot rounds of 81 and 77 to advance to the round of 64 as the 33rd seed, the highest-ranked of the three NorCal players to move on from medal play. Cowan’s match against 32 seed Anita Wicks of Roseburg, Oregon, was a hard-fought affair that had Wicks trailing Cowan for most of the match, fighting back to square the match twice before eventually falling to Cowan 2 and 1.

Lynne Cowan will face 64 seed Courtney Myhrum, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a 7:45 a.m. match in the round of 32. Myhrum, who is the vice-chair of the USGA Women’s Committee and serves as chairman of the Girls’ Junior Committee, closed out #1 seed Lara Tennant 1-up in a closely fought match to advance to match play.

Fairfield’s Tina Barker, who plays out of the Green Valley Country Club in Fairfield, also had a tough match, against Evelyn Orley of Cardiff, California. Barker was ahead of her opponent for 11 of the eventual 19 holes of the match, but never more than two up.

Orley, who played junior golf in her native Switzerland and later college golf for Duke University, went one-up on Barker on the second hole before losing the third hole with a bogey to Barker’s par.

Orley pulled the match back to square no less than four times, but was unable to seize a definitive advantage. After squaring the match for the fourth time, with a par to Barker’s bogey on the 18th hole, the former LPGA Tour pro – now a reinstated amateur – closed out the match with a birdie on the first extra hole.

Probably the toughest match played by any of the three NorCal women was the contest between Mill Valley’s Pat Cornett and Akemi Nakata Khaiat, of Japan, the 2015 Japan Women’s Senior Golf champion.

Dr. Cornett, a 1972 graduate of North Salinas High School, where she played on the boy’s golf team along with future PGA Tour pro Mike Brannan (NSHS Class of 1974), has been a fixture in local, state, national, and international amateur golf ever since high school. She has played in over 50 USGA championships, starting with the 1971 U.S. Girls’ Junior, including eight U.S. Women’s Opens.

Her accomplishments in the game run to several pages, but the highlights include a runner-up finish in the inaugural USGA Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship in 1987, member of the 1978 and 1988 U.S. Curtis Cup teams, as well as being captain of the 2012 team, and winning the 1990 Women’s Western Amateur.

Cornett’s achievements on the golf course have had to fit into an impressive professional career. A graduate of Stanford University and the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Dr. Cornett specializes in the field of non-malignant hematology, and is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Trailing after the fourth hole, Cornett went three down at the 14th hole before holding the line at the 15th with a par to match Khaiat. Three down with three to play and needing four straight wins to take the match, Cornett played in with a solid string of three pars against three bogeys from Khaiat, squaring the match at the 18th hole before closing out her opponent with a birdie on the first extra hole.

Pat Cornett will face #10 seed Caryn Wilson of Rancho Mirage in Tuesday’s Round of 32. Wilson, also a graduate of Stanford University, is a country-club-sport double threat: she played college tennis at Stanford and went on to a professional career in that sport in the mid-1980s, competing at Wimbledon, and in the U.S. and Australian Opens.

Taking up golf after stints as an assistant tennis coach at Stanford and a head coaching position at Santa Monica Junior College, Wilson turned pro again, this time in golf, in 1999, and qualified for the first of two U.S. Opens; she is now a reinstated amateur. She joins the legendary Althea Gibson as the only other woman to have played in the U.S. Open in both golf and tennis.