There is an intimate perspective to the home of the Masters that can be gained no other way than by playing a tournament there, under the gaze of thousands and to the fluttering beat of your own heart. It is a perspective that until Saturday was lost to more than half the world’s population.
But now when Amanda Doherty watches the next Masters, it will be different, better. “Oh yeah, I think it will,” she said. “I’ll be thinking, ‘You know I was standing right there, I hit that shot.’ It will be really fun to watch next week, for sure, even more than normal.”
More than guess how it must feel to stand on the first tee at Augusta on a deciding day, now Doherty knows. Rather than dream what it must be like to play in front of a big gallery on the biggest stage – Saturday's crowd for the first Augusta National Women's Amateur seemed to about two-thirds the size of a usual Masters gathering – she can say she did it. "And to see her perform under that different circumstance was pretty cool," said her father and her caddie, Mike Doherty.
An FSU junior by way of Atlanta, Doherty was one of 30 players Saturday finishing the first women’s tournament played at Augusta National. She did not win. She did not finish in the top 10. Shooting a 1-over 73 on the final round – the single round played at Augusta National, the first two were off-site – Doherty wound up 4 over for the tournament, tied for 22nd place.
She did, however, have an experience shared by no one else of her gender until this fine day. “Nothing I’ve played in has even come close to this – at all,” Doherty said afterward.
“Fourth best day of life,” said Mike, who thankfully did not drop his wedding and the birth of his two daughters out of the top three.
There is a new perspective, too, for the rest of us as we watch the events of the next week unfold and are free to wonder: Will anyone else finish with the style of Jennifer Kupcho?
Saturday presented a whole new angle on an old, staid golf course. Another champion emerged from America’s most famous golfing address, and her name was Jennifer Kupcho. Along the way she added one more, distinct chapter to the back-nine-at-Augusta chronicles.
The No. 1-ranked amateur in the world, in her senior season at Wake Forest, Kupcho finished classically, erasing a two-shot deficit by going 5 under for her last six holes, including an eagle on the par-5 13th. The only eagle of the day. If the winner next Sunday approaches that, they will write poems about him for the next decade.
Credit: ccompton@ajc.com
Credit: ccompton@ajc.com
Kupcho shot 67 on Saturday, and at 10 under for the tournament finished four shots ahead of the University of Arkansas’ Maria Fassi. And eight shots clear of the next two closest players.
In addition, both Kupcho and Fassi share a trait that Bobby Jones himself would have greatly appreciated: They both earned playing privileges on the LPGA Tour, but put them aside to finish out their amateur college careers this season.
The women played an Augusta National that was set up about 1,100 yards shorter than the men will play in five days. The course was softened by recent rains, and the pin positions were mostly merciful. But, still, no 67 here can be diminished. Especially by a player who was fighting blurred vision – the effects of a migraine – as she entered Amen Corner. At one point, Kupcho told her caddie, “I can’t see anything. Just tell me where to hit it.” She came out of it just in time to put together a memorable finishing sprint.
What was played out here Saturday may have been minor in the scope of world events but was rather significant within the cloister of golf. Certainly that’s how these young women’s foremothers saw it.
Like the Masters itself, there was before anything else a first-tee ceremony featuring a few golfing greats Saturday. Hall of Famers all, Annika Sorenstam, Nancy Lopez, Se Ri Pak and Lorena Ochoa launched this new event with symbolic tee shots off No. 1.
And like the Masters, it was a happy and touching moment, if for somewhat different reasons. These women were not commemorating history as much as they were helping to compose it.
Said Lopez, of her walk to the first tee, “Annika and I were walking down, I was trying not to cry because I was so proud just walking down. I looked over at Annika, and I'm like, she's crying. She had tears in her eyes, so I guess I can do it.”
There were memories to be made on the other side of the ropes as well.
Brothers Joel and Gordon Leopard roused their three daughters – that was 8-year-old Reagan with Joel and Annaleigh, 12, and Abigail, 10, with Gordon – early Saturday. Early enough to make the drive from nearby Aiken, S.C. to Augusta National in time to catch that 7:45 a.m. first tee ceremony.
“We talked about coming later, but decided why wouldn’t you want to see as much of this day as possible? Gordon said.
“If we have children, we’ll be able to tell them we were here the first time this happened,” Annaleigh said proudly.
This was a day of establishing new relationships with Augusta National. One young woman from Atlanta knows for sure that she can reach the par-5 second hole in two (and birdie from there), and that she can pull off a tough up-and-down from the bunker at No. 16.
And it was a day to give testimony just as much as it was to hit a little white ball.
“This tournament has really shows how good we are and what younger girls have to look forward to,” Kupcho said.
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