By Leland Hardy | June 8, 2021
The Olympic Club, San Francisco, CA: There’s a reason they we’re here. It’s because they’re the very best that the world has to offer in this grandest of games – golf. This contest of contests pitted the world’s best golfers against one another in a true test of skill, smarts, will, and grit from which, as the cliché goes, only the strong survive.
More than any other Major Championship, though, the U.S. Women’s Open doubles as veritable electron microscope for burgeoning talent, permitting the world’s golf fans to see what the future of the sport will look like by letting us see tomorrow’s stars today as they are hardened like so many diamonds under the immense pressure of the world’s stage, and the intense heat of the event’s many moments.
The U.S. Women’s Open is a showcase of new faces as the game of golf continues to evolve, though more slowly than many would hope, from a game available to and played by the privileged country club set and followed by elitists, into a game played by a kaleidoscope of players of all backgrounds, especially those we seldom see at meticulously manicured private country clubs like The Olympic Club. One of those new faces at the Major Championship level is that of Amari Avery, the 17 year old teen golf sensation from Riverside, CA who made history in qualifying for the tournament.
When the players’ first round tee times are announced every player in the field has a blank scorecard. What later gets written on those score cards is based upon a host of factors, not the least of which are the players’ abilities to take all of the fine tuning of their swing, all of the seeds of wisdom inculcated in them by coaches, and all of their unique intangibles from the driving range and their practice rounds to the tee box once it becomes “lights, camera, action” time and the competition begins in earnest.
Lights, Camera, Action!
A great many of those lights and cameras were focused on Avery for three primary reasons;
1) when the action begins she has an enviable track record of coming up big in big moments, e.g. winning the 2019-2020 California Women’s Amateur Championship and becoming the youngest golfer ever and first ever African American woman to do so;
2) Avery is pegged as one of the brightest hopes for America’s return to the top of the heap where America stood before the great Se Ri Pak’s LPGA Tour rookie season inspired a nation to take on the world (Pak, then the only Korean woman on tour, won 2 majors in her debut LPGA Tour season becoming a near deity in her native South Korea), and;
3) Avery’s ascension to the apogee of golf portends the opening of floodgates of Black and Brown players with rabid interest in becoming world champions because, unlike Tiger Woods or anyone else before or since, she has both that “it” factor and that “cool” factor that resonates with fans such that they genuinely believe that they can be like Amari. Case in point was a young gentleman and his 7-year-old son who had driven for two hours and had already been waiting for nearly an hour at the 9th tee to see Amari tee off at her matutinal 7:22AM Round 2 tee time.
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On day 1, hole number 1
On day 1, hole number 1 of this past week’s U.S. Women’s Open, Amari was taught a lesson that only the best golf teacher in the world, i.e. experience, can teach. Amari’s tee shot found the left rough about 240 yards off the tee. Unfortunately, as proof positive that the ONLY way to have success at The Olympic Club is to hit fairways and a lot of ’em, Amari’s second shot barely advanced, staying in that same, nasty, ugly, unforgiving rough.
After gathering her wits about herself, and after consultation with her caddie, she landed her approach shot just short of the green for an up-and-down that had her make bogey, but that could easily have had her start the tournament with a double or even a triple bogey.
While Avery did not seize upon as many of the the first round scoring opportunities that arose from her hitting the majority of the course’s greens in regulation as she would have liked, she did showcase her deft touch around the greens and masterful putting skills with some tremendous birdie putts and par saves, including this 25 footer that let everyone in her ever growing gallery know that – to borrow an investment term from the nearby Sand Hill Road venture capital community in Silicon Valley – they were witnessing “an early stage superstar with nothing but upside.”
On the very next hole she slammed in a 35 footer to save her par and to keep alive the hope that she could get things going to pick up a shot or two to stay in the mix. She finished the day with a respectable 5 over par 77 to stay within reach of making the cut.
3 Day Recap
Day #1 saw another great American hopeful put on a scintillating display of course management, putting, and iron accuracy as Amari’s close friend from the Junior Golf circuit and fellow 17-year-old starlet, Holmdel, NJ’s Megha Ganne, deservedly stole the show by taking the outright tournament lead into the clubhouse with a spectacular 4 under par 68.
On Day #2, “moving day,” as it were, unfortunately Amari was unable to escape the wrath of the Olympic Club’s unforgiving rough, or the ultra challenging pre-tournament grooming affected by Director of Golf Maintenance, Troy Flanagan, who is one of the world’s best at his craft. Amari’s dream to make the cut and to play into the weekend at the Open would go unfulfilled for at least one more year as she finished with a two day aggregate score of 11 over par, just a few missed putts and missed fairways over the +6 cut line.
As a barometer, Amari finished 1 stroke better than former U.S. Women’s Open Champion, Michelle Wie-West, and three shots better than the current world #1 ranked amateur golfer, Rose Zhang, both of whom also missed the cut. Time will tell if Amari gets the opportunity to play in another Major Championship before qualifying her way into the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open taking place next June at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C.
Speaking of dreams, America and the world can look forward to dream final round pairings of Avery and Ganne for years to come. American golf is well on the road to restored leadership, indeed, in the very capable hands of those two prodigies.
