Kentucky ladies’s golfer earns one of many first two spots as an computerized qualifier
LEXINGTON, Ky. (UK Athletics) – Kentucky ladies’s golfer Jensen Fortress will play within the Curtis Cup for a second straight season, the US Golf Affiliation introduced on Tuesday.
Fortress has an computerized spot on the workforce after successful the 2021 U.S. Ladies’s Novice. That earned her choice to the forty first Curtis Cup match this previous August after it was postponed from June 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the 2022 match, the forty second version of the occasion, on schedule for June earlier than subsequent yr’s U.S. Ladies’s Novice, Fortress is again on the workforce alongside Rose Zhang, a freshman at Stanford and the 2021 Mark H. McCormack Medal recipient.
“As a part of the USGA’s choice course of for its worldwide competitions, the reigning U.S. Ladies’s Novice champion and Mark H. McCormack Medal winner obtain computerized choices to the Curtis Cup Crew,” stated John Bodenhamer, senior managing director of championships for the USGA. “We felt it was essential to maintain these choices intact, regardless of the unprecedented nature of the present Match schedule. Each Jensen and Rose are implausible opponents and other people, and we’re proud to as soon as once more have them characterize the USGA and the US.”
Each Fortress and Zhang have been members of the 2021 workforce that defeated Nice Britain and Eire 12.5-7.5 in August at Conwy Golf Membership in Wales. Fortress posted a 1-1-2 document, together with a key half level within the last spherical of singles, for Crew USA’s first victory abroad since 2008.
The 2022 Curtis Cup will happen June 10-12 at Merion Golf Membership in Ardmore, Pennsylvania.
Sarah Ingram, a three-time U.S. Ladies’s Mid-Novice champion (1991, 1993 and 1994) and a member of three USA Curtis Cup Groups (1992, 1994 and 1996), will once more function captain after main the USA to victory earlier this previous yr.
“Having Rose and Jensen on the Curtis Cup Crew this previous summer season was an absolute pleasure,” Ingram stated. “Their expertise, familiarity and management shall be invaluable at Merion. I’ve actually loved attending to know these two fabulous younger girls and sit up for persevering with our Curtis Cup journey collectively as we glance to safe back-to-back victories.”
The Curtis Cup is a biennial worldwide ladies’s newbie golf competitors between eight-player groups from the U.S. and Nice Britain and Eire (GB&I). It consists of six foursomes (alternate-shot) matches, six four-ball matches and eight singles matches over three days of competitors. The USGA’s Worldwide Crew Choice Working Group selects the USA Crew, whereas The Royal & Historic selects the GB&I Crew.
Notable previous USA Curtis Cup Crew members embody U.S. Ladies’s Open champions JoAnne Gunderson Carner, Paula Creamer, Juli Inkster, Cristie Kerr, Patty Sheehan, Hollis Stacy and Michelle Wie, in addition to previous and current LPGA stars equivalent to Stacy Lewis, Lexi Thompson, Beth Daniel, Jessica Korda, Nancy Lopez and Dottie Pepper.
Fortress turned the primary participant in UK ladies’s golf historical past to make the workforce this previous August. She represented herself effectively in Wales, serving a key member of in Crew USA’s comeback.
After trailing 4.5-1.5 as a workforce, Fortress earned 1.5 factors on the second day of competitors to even the match heading into the ultimate spherical. In singles, Fortress rallied from 3 down with 4 holes to play to halve her match and steal an essential half level.
Fortress’s comeback was harking back to her unimaginable U.S. Ladies’s Novice run, which earned her a spot on the Curtis Tup Crew within the first place. There she rallied from 2 down with three holes to play to stun Rachel Heck, the 2021 NCAA particular person champion, on the nineteenth gap within the semifinals, after which rallied from a 2-down deficit vs. Yu-Chiang (Vivian) Hou, the 2020 Ladies’s Golf Coaches Affiliation Freshman of the Yr, to win the 36-hole championship match 2 and 1.
In successful the U.S. Ladies’s Novice, Fortress turned the primary No. 63 seed to win the Robert Cox Trophy and the third No. 63 seed in USGA historical past to win a title since seeding started within the Nineteen Eighties, in accordance with the USGA.
Fortress did all that on the U.S. Ladies’s Novice and the Curtis Cup whereas getting back from a rib damage. She didn’t swing a membership till for weeks till days earlier than the U.S. Ladies’s Novice.
Now wholesome, Fortress has continued the momentum in her junior season at Kentucky. In 4 fall occasions, Fortress led the Wildcats in scoring common with 71.75 strokes per spherical, fractions higher than her program’s record-setting tempo in 2019-20 when she was only a freshman.
Fortress posted two top-20 finishes in 4 occasions within the fall, together with a third-place end on the Mason Rudolph Championship due to a career-best 54-hole rating of 208, 8-under par.
It has been a monster 2021 for Fortress. Earlier this summer season, Fortress teamed up with Wake Forest’s Rachel Kuehn to win their second straight Carolinas Ladies’s 4-Ball Championship with a record-tying rating.
Fortress’s particular person success over the summer season adopted Kentucky’s historic return to the NCAA Championship Finals within the spring. The Wildcats’ reached the nationwide championship stage in Scottsdale, Arizona, this system’s first look since 1992. After all, Fortress performed a central position within the Wildcats’ breakthrough, contributing 30 of her 33 scores to the workforce complete.
Along with 4 collegiate occasions this fall, Fortress additionally competed within the LPGA Tour’s Cognizant Founders Cup on a particular exemption.
Fortress and the Wildcats will break for the winter earlier than returning in mid-January for the beginning of the spring slate. She is at present ranked No. 55 within the Golfstat’s particular person rankings.
