By Paul Prendergast.
Photo: WPGA Tour of Australasia.
Australia’s number one ranked women’s amateur Kirstin Rudgeley introduced herself to the broader Australia golfing public with a memorable playoff victory in The Athena at Melbourne’s Sandy Golf Links.
The WA amateur was able to take home the $5000 on offer for winning the most cumulative points in Saturday’s skills challenges and played just like a No.1 seed should on Sunday to progress to the final. She did so despite lining up against NSW’s Grace Kim with the knowledge that under prevailing amateur status rules, the $30,000 first prize would ellude her, win or lose.
This fact might have been a distraction for others but Rudgeley was unflinching in both her attitude and performance all day on Sunday. In all of her matches, Rudgeley put on a short game clinic that would have made her fellow Mt Lawley Golf Club practice partner Brett Rumford swoon, and this is a guy who’s short game four-time major champion Rory McIlroy is in awe of.
That prowess was called upon time and again, including on the final hole of regulation when Rudgeley hit a pressure-packed pitch across a slippery green to within tap in distance with Kim sitting inside 5 metres for a winning eagle.
When Kim missed, a putt-off was called for with both players matching each other over the first four attempts. Kim had the opportunity to win it all on the third attempt after Rudgeley had missed but was not able to capitalize. She then missed again on the fifth attempt to seal Rudgeley’s win.
The two finalists, the No. 1 and 2 seeds respectively, share a link to the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship with Kim a 2021 participant and Rudgeley to make the drive down Magnolia Lane as one of the favourites this April. No doubt some of that $5K will offset some of the travel costs with change for a few peach melbas on the clubhouse lawn between rounds.
Rudgeley’s The Athena credentials might have been in question for those new to her game but any doubt was surely erased with the one swing she made in the Proximity challenge on Saturday afternoon. Into a stiffening wind and playing to a target set at 200 metres, Rudgeley showed imagination and a great pair of hands with a knock-down 3-wood that bore through the wind to within metres of the flag.
That shotmaking creativity was also evident on Sunday in the leadup matches, with two great bunker shots standing out and a crisp approach on the 1st hole that virtually sealed her match against local hope, Stephanie Bunque.
On a firm and fast Sandy Links, luck was to play little part in the outcomes of Sunday’s three-hole stroke play matches with only the most precisely played approach shots into and around the greens exacting a deserving reward. Iron shots that were not struck perfectly, or that were pitched in the wrong place, were invariably punished with players then forced to confront similar challenges to the day before i.e. long putts, flop shots, bunker explosions or long pitch and runs from either short or well beyond the greens.
All up, it made for compelling viewing with no player able to relax until the final putts dropped. All 12 of The Athena contestants had moments in the sun over the weekend and reinforced to us that the talent pool in Australia’s women’s golf runs much deeper than those shining the torch for others on the LPGA Tour.
Kim’s performances over the past two months alone against both mixed and women’s fields will imbue her with confidence ahead of a U.S. secondary tour assault she hopes will lead to her joining Minjee Lee, Hannah Green, Su Oh and The Athena semi-finalist Karis Davidson among the Australians in the main event, sooner rather than later.
From what we saw of Kirsten Rudgeley over the weekend at The Athena, we can expect her smiling face and serious game to be in that mix before too long too.
