70th U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship coming to Poppy Hills GC

The golf courses in the Del Monte Forest are no strangers to championship events. Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill, and the private courses, Cypress Point and Monterey Peninsula Country Club, have hosted PGA Tour and Champions Tour events, and Pebble Beach Golf Links has hosted several national championships – five U.S. Opens, and four U.S. Amateur Championships.

Poppy Hills, the home of the Northern California Golf Association – the largest regional golf association in the United States, and the only one to have its own home course – has been in the mix, too. In addition to the NCGA’s own state and local championship events, Poppy Hills was for many years one of the host courses for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and currently co-hosts the Champions Tour’s First Tee Open (presented by PURE Insurance.) In a few weeks from now, July 16 – 21, the NCGA’s flagship course will host a USGA championship of its own – the 70th U.S. Junior Girls’ Championship.

The Northern California Golf Association (NCGA) will host its first national championship when the 70th U.S. Girls’ Junior Chanpiosnhip comes to Poppy Hills GC July 16–21, 2018.

The Girls’ Junior, which is a showcase for the Curtis Cup, Solheim Cup, and LPGA stars of the future, last visited Central California in 2012. That year’s event saw current LPGA stars such as Ariya Jutanagarn, Lydia Ko, and Minjee Lee playing for the Glenna Collett-Vare trophy at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City. The tournament has been played on the Monterey Peninsula before, in 1952 at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, when future World Golf Hall of Fame member Mickey Wright, then 17 years old, was the champion. Next month at Poppy Hills some of women’s golf’s stars of years to come will certainly be in the field.

Renovated Poppy Hills course is ready for a championship

When qualifying concludes on June 28th, a field of 156 girls up to the age of 18 will be headed for the Monterey Peninsula to contest their national championship on the beautifully renovated Poppy Hills course.

The course closed in March 2013 for a complete makeover, reopening in April 2014 after a 13-month-long renovation. Completely sand-capped to improve drainage, the course also received a state-of-the-art irrigation control system for more efficient water use. Native areas were restored, eliminating 25 acres that were previously irrigated turf to reduce water requirements. Water hazards were reduced or eliminated, some holes were realigned, and many of the greens significantly revamped.

Later that year, once the renovation was firmly in place, the NCGA approached the USGA about the possibility of hosting a national championship on the now “firm, fast, and fun” course, and in 2015 were selected to host this event. Planning for the tournament began in 2016.

Expect a different look than the Poppy Hills you play

The course will play a bit differently for the tournament than day-to-day players are used to. The nines were flipped after a couple of years’ experience with the new layout, improving pace of play by eliminating the backups that occurred on the then-front nine, which has an early run of difficult holes.

Tracy Parsons, the USGA’s tournament director for the event, first walked the course with the original order in place.

“The very first time that I came on this golf course, the First Tee was here, and that’s the way that I walked the course, that’s the way that I began preparing, and that’s the way that I envisioned the championship being played. When the NCGA flipped the nines I started walking the golf course the opposite way…and it didn’t make much sense to me for our championship.”

“When we go to match play we go to a single-tee start, and I’d like to have the crowd around the first tee for all the players. It obviously makes more sense for us to have it (the first tee) right here (near the clubhouse), and to have both the finishing holes right there as well. In match play, obviously some of our matches won’t make it to the 18th hole, and some of those holes on the front nine are so key to the round that I don’t want to skip them. The way that the routing was originally works in our best interests for the championship. I understand why they (the NCGA) flipped it for regular play, but for our purposes I think it makes the most sense to stick with the original routing.”

A record 1,609 entries were received for this year’s event, 103 more than in 2017. Forty sites around the country are hosting qualifying tournaments, where 140 girls (156-player field minus 16 exempt players) will advance to the championship event at Poppy Hills. They will play the course to a par of 71, at a length of 6,182 yards.

These Girls Are Good

Entry into the championship requires that the player carry a handicap of -9.4 or better.

“People who have never come to the Girls’ Junior think, ‘Oh that’s so cute, with their little pigtails and their bows,’ tournament director Tracy Parsons told the media during the recent preview day, “but I think that if they were actually to come and watch these players compete – because that’s what they are, they’re competitors – they would be surprised, and in awe of what these girls can do. I think the testament to that is the fact that the USGA has recognized the level of play, and last year awarded this champion an exemption into the U.S. Women’s Open.”

A USGA review of the level of play in both the Girls’ Junior and the Junior Amateur Championship two years ago led them to raise the maximum age from 17 to 18, and also to raise the bar for the required handicap. Prior to 2017 the requirement for the Girls’ Junior was -18.4; it was slashed nearly in half to the current -9.4. In 2017 no player that advanced to the championship was above a 6.0.

For a taste of the level of competitor who will be playing in this tournament, Concord’s Yealimi Noh, 16, a member of the Junior Tour of Northern California who qualified for the championship with a 5-under 67 on the par-72 course at The Reserve at Spanos Park, in Stockton, carries a +4 handicap.

Play begins July 16, with rounds of stroke play on the 16th and 17th to trim the field down to 64 players. Single-elimination match play at 18 holes will cut the field down to an eventual two finalists squaring off for the championship, which will be decided by a 36-hole match on 21 July.

Admission to the tournament is free for spectators.

Lydia Ko seals the deal as LPGA returns to the Bay Area

Bay Area golf fans have always enjoyed an abundance of opportunities to see high-level competitive golf. The PGA Tour visits twice a year, for the season-opening Safeway Open in October, and the venerable AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February. The Champions Tour comes to Pebble Beach in September for the First Tee Open (now sponsored by PURE Insurance), the USGA visits fairly regularly for various championship events, and the Northern California Golf Association (NCGA) holds their championship events around the area every year.

Lydia Ko, winner of the inaugural LPGA Mediheal Championship, accepts the trophy from Mediheal Chairman, Oh-sub Kwon. This was Ko’s third win in four LPGA tournaments at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City. (photo by author)

What has been missing too often in recent years has been the consistent presence of professional women’s golf. From 1996 to 2010 a tournament known as the Twelve Bridges LPGA Classic, and later as the Longs Drugs Challenge and the CVS Pharmacy/LPGA Challenge was held on Sacramento–area courses before moving to Blackhawk Country Club in the East Bay for its last five years. After CVS dropped its sponsorship in 2010, Northern California entered a drought period—until 2014, when the Taiwanese golf association known as “Swinging Skirts” brought an LPGA tournament to Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City.

The new event was well received by players and fans alike during its three-year run, but the Taiwanese group pulled their support after the 2016 event, leaving Bay Area LPGA fans in the lurch again.

Fast-forward to late 2017, and the announcement of a new LPGA tournament, again at Lake Merced Golf Club—sponsor unknown—then, in March 2018, the official LPGA press release gave the name of the sponsor for the event, Mediheal, a South Korean maker of cosmetic facial mask products.

The players love coming back to the San Francisco Bay Area, and the fans love to see them. Often touted as a U.S. Open-quality course, Lake Merced Golf Club (which was considered for an Open in the past, but rejected for lack of room for infrastructure support) is a favorite among LPGA players, though acknowledged to be a tough layout. Hilly, with mostly small, diabolically contoured greens, LMGC also challenges with the changeable Peninsula weather.

Same course, new order

One change from the LPGA’s previous visits to Lake Merced is in the course’s order of play. I was told that the new sponsor wanted a new look to help differentiate the event from the Swinging Skirts event which was held here 2014-2016, also that television coverage was a factor. While the normal order of play yields a visually dramatic finish—the course’s 532-yard par-five 18th hole plays down to a valley from an elevated tee, then up to a two-tiered green overlooked by the clubhouse, but is a no-kidding three-shotter even for elite-level men—the new routing provides more potential for a dramatic finish.

The final trio of holes are, in order: a dramatic downhill 417-yard par-4, followed by a challenging par-3 that can play as long as 184 yards, and closing with a 518-yard par-5 that has the potential to be a two-shotter even for the mid–range drivers in the LPGA’s ranks. The 15th hole is a par–5 that is reachable for most of this field, adding another potential shot of drama to the closing holes.

The new event saw a pair of players separate themselves from the pack on Saturday, when Lydia Ko and Jessica Korda came in at –11 and –10, respectively, with Minjee Lee at –8, and a smattering of players at –6 coming up behind. Ko made an impressive move in the third round, posting a 5-under 67 to pass Korda for the 54-hole lead.

Players battle bright but breezy weather

Chilly, breezy conditions for the morning wave prevented any strong moves by the back-markers on Sunday—though it would have taken quite a jump to spring into contention from the even-par-or-worse territory inhabited by first 19 groups.

The second half of the field teed off under a blue sky scoured free of clouds by a brisk onshore breeze, and the final pairing of Ko and Korda immediately came back to the field by one, each dropping a shot on the par-4 first hole.

The final round turned into a horse race on the back nine as Minjee Lee, the 2012 U.S. Girls’ Junior champion on this course, was in red numbers for the round while Ko and Korda dropped shots and opened the door for their pursuers. Angel Yin posted a 5-under 67 to move to 8-under, moving up 11 spots to T-3, but ran out of holes before she could truly threaten for the lead.

Jessica Korda faded in the middle of the back nine, a cold putter resulting in bogeys at 10 and 12 and a drop to –8. A birdie at 15 moved her to –9, and put her in solo 3rd with three to play, behind Ko at –11 and Lee at –10. She failed to capitalize on a read from Ko’s putt at 16, missing high, and also missing a chance to pull  into a tie for 2nd with Minjee Lee.

Lee, in the meantime, hit her second poor iron shot in two holes when her 8-iron off the tee at the par-three 17th strayed right and and found the bunker, but she was redeemed by a chip-in for birdie – and was now tied for 1st with her antipodean rival, Ko.

New Routing Pays Off

The closing holes of the tournament highlighted the wisdom of the decision to swap the nines. Though less visually arresting than the usual 18th hole, with no clubhouse backdrop, and noise from the nearby freeway and BART intruding, the new closing hole left the door open for a dramatic finish that would not have been possible with the original routing.

Lee birdied the final hole to take the lead at -12, throwing down a gauntlet for Ko. Not to be outdone, the two-time champion at Lake Merced answered with a birdie of her own, setting up a playoff between two former winners on this challenging, windswept course.

Ko’s tee shot on the playoff hole showed her savvy and course knowledge. Laying her tee shot near the right side of the fairway, short of Lee’s drive but better placed, Ko laced a 234-yard 3-wood to within three feet of the front-right flag, throwing down a gauntlet of her own. Lee’s second shot finished in the rough short and right of the green—in almost identical position to her second shot on 18 in regulation—leaving her facing a chip-in from 20 yards to prolong the contest, but it wasn’t to be.

Lee’s penultimate shot rolled past, leaving an easy comebacker for birdie—but her opponent had a near kick-in for eagle, and the win.

It was almost anticlimactic. The newly minted 21-year-old took her time, stroked the putt – and sealed the deal for her third win in four LPGA tournaments at Lake Merced Golf Club.

“It’s a huge relief (to win after 43 winless starts), because people are saying ‘You’re not winning because of this, you’re not winning because of that,’ ” Ko said, “It was nice to be in the final group again, to be in the position to win again.”