Home Cooking For Allen ?

San Diego Resident Likes Ocean Setting For WAPL

By David Shefter, USGA

Palm Coast , Fla. – Take away the humidity, add some elevation to the coastline and Beth Allen would feel right at home this week. Ocean Hammock Golf Club is a continent away from Torrey Pines in San Diego, Calif., but the ocean-side resort offers some of the same breathtaking beauty and windy conditions.

So it’s no wonder that Allen is off to a solid start at the 2003 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship. The 21-year-old Allen works and plays at Torrey Pines, the site for the 2008 U.S. Open and one of the country’s premier municipal layouts. Her father, Jim, is the director of golf for the city of San Diego where he oversees the activities at Balboa Park and Torrey Pines. He’s also a Class A PGA professional who helped teach his daughter the game. He is serving as Beth's caddie this week.

Beth sells range balls and during her off time she practices on two challenging Torrey Pines courses (the South will host the Open), which annually play host to a PGA Tour event.

“When you play a course like that all the time, other courses don’t seem that long,” said Beth Allen, who advanced to the second round of match play with a 1-up win over Leigh Klasse on Thursday. “Here (at Ocean Hammock) if you need to have a good short game and Torrey Pines is so long that it makes you practice your short game. It’s one of my weaknesses, but I am getting better. It helps that I play at Torrey all the time.”

On Tuesday, Allen posted the best competitive round of her career, firing a 4-under-par 68 to take the first-round lead in stroke-play qualifying. She shot an 81 on Wednesday, but easily qualified for match play. At the 2002 WAPL — her first-ever USGA competition —she also advanced to match play, going 20 holes in her first match before being ousted by the eventual champion, Annie Thurman, in round two.

“Last year when I left I was frustrated with my performance,” said Allen, who will be a senior at Cal State Northridge. “Now I know that par is a good score in match play.”

This past year, Allen continued her strong improvement at CSUN, where her stroke average as a freshman was 79. In the 2002-03 season, that average dipped to 74 and she captured the Big West Conference individual title. She missed advancing to the NCAA Women’s Championships as an individual by three strokes.

That experience (she also qualified for the 2002 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Sleepy Hollow last summer where she missed the match-play cut) has given Allen much more confidence coming into the 2003 WAPL.

“I don’t feel like such a newcomer,” said Allen, who faces Alison Zimmer of Tallahassee, Fla., in round two on Friday morning. “I’m definitely more confident.”

Marquee matchup: Friday’s second round features an intriguing rematch of last year’s WAPL semifinals with 13-year-old Michelle Wie facing Hwanhee Lee. Lee got the better of the Hawaiian phenom in the 2002 encounter at Sunriver ( Ore. ) Golf Resort. Lee would eventually lose in the 36-hole final to Annie Thurman, 6 and 5.

In the same lower bracket, northern California and southern California will go at it with a pair of teenagers facing off. Mina Harigae, 13, of Monterey meets 2002 U.S. Girls’ Junior semifinalist Hannah Jun, 18, of San Diego. Jun is headed to UCLA in the fall, while Harigae enters the eighth grade.

Repeating the feat: Annie Thurman of Highland, Utah, kept alive her bid to become the first back-to-back WAPL champion since Pearl Sinn in 1989 by rallying on the back nine to post a 2-and-1 victory over Courtney Mahon of Topeka, Kan. Thurman, who will be a junior at Oklahoma State University, was 3-down at the turn before making her charge.

She is the first defending champion to compete at the WAPL since Amy Spooner in 1999. Only three players in the history of the championship have posted back-to-back wins. Besides Sinn, Kelly Fuiks achieved the feat in 1977 and ’78, the first two years of the event, and that was quickly followed by Lori Castillo in 1979 and ’80.

Prior to Thurman’s triumph at Sunriver (Ore.) Resort (Meadows Course), the previous three WAPL champions, Jody Niemann, Catherine Cartwright and Candie Kung, all turned professional following their triumph.

Name game: All three players with the last name of Cho qualified for match play. Carling Cho of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., needed to survive a 7-for-3 playoff, while Aimee Cho of Ul-San, Korea earned the second seed after posting a 36-hole total of 2-under-142, one stroke behind medalist Virada Nirapathpongporn of Thailand. Jeanne Cho of Paris, France, who like Aimee Cho attends the University of Florida, was the ninth seed for match play.

Carling Cho was defeated by medalist Virada Nirapathpongporn, 3 and 2. Jeanne Cho was a 3-and-1 winner over Kirsten Davis of Eastham, Mass., while Aimee Cho trounced Lynsey Myers of Ogden, Utah, 7 and 6.

None of the Cho women are related.

And just for good measure, Yvonne Choe (pronounced the same way) of Temple City, Calif., also advanced into match play. She was a semifinalist last year, losing to Thurman, the eventual champion. This year, she was upended in the first round, 6 and 5, by Amanda McCurdy of El Dorado, Ark.

By the way, the WAPL field did have four Kims (Bolee, Julie , Hana and Kimberly), but only Hana survived the cut for match play. Hana was eliminated, 4 and 3, by Jennifer Ackerson of Allen, Texas .

Planting those seeds: Upsets are always part of the equation at a match-play event, but the top 16 seeds fared quite well in round one. Only No. 8 Charlotte Mayorkas, who edged Allen for the title at the recent San Diego City Women’s Amateur at Torrey Pines, No. 14 Marina Choi and No. 15 Hana Kim were first-round victims. Last year, Sunny Oh took out medalist Jessica Reese in the first round, 9 and 7.

Team champs: The Murrieta, Calif. qualifying site, led by Beth Allen, Charlotte Mayorkas and Hannah Jun, captured the team championship with a 36-hole total of 291, five strokes ahead of San Jose, Calif. Each site is allowed to pick three players for the team competition, where the best two of three scores is used in determining the overall score. San Jose was represented by Mina Harigae, Bolee Kim and Marina Choi.

Third place went to Bolingbrook, Ill., at 297, with Cathie Williamson, Brooke Tull and Carrie Sordel contributing.

A California site has captured the team title eight of the last 12 years.

David Shefter is a staff writer for the USGA. He can be reach at dshefter@usga.org.