Final Day Notebook

Sunriver, Ore. -- In the course of the 2007 USGA Senior Women's Amateur championship match, there is a lot to see both while observing the players and while just absorbing the great outdoors around you. Here's a few of the things that were observed.

--- People look smaller when you see them from even a short distance away just because of the vastness of the blue skies here.

-- The players at this championship stay around, even after they are eliminated. It's probably a good guess that a quarter of the gallery of around 150 was made up of players from the Senior Women's Amateur.

Runner-up Robyn Puckett makes a greenside chip in the championship match. (Robert Walker/USGA)

--- The day was a very good clone of all the other Sunriver days we have seen -- a chilly start but warming up nicely as the sun finds its place in the sky.

-- It's amazing how close the Deschutes River comes to the right side of the green on the 2nd hole. You have to be on right side of the green to see it.

-- The day's first birdie is a 30-footer by Anna Schultz on the 3rd hole. She has removed her windshirt as it is warming up.

-- Four past champions -- Carol Semple Thompson, Nancy Fitzgerald, Carolyn Creekmore and Diane Lang are among the interested spectators.

-- The 10th hole at the Meadows Course is right near a small airfield. The activity there is continuous. You can sometimes hear the people taking a ride shout out joyously from the ground.

-- Match play is a great part of the tradition of golf. No matter how many times you say that anything can happen in match play, it always does. Schultz looks like she is going to lose the 5th but chips in for par and Robyn Puckett three-putts to lose the hole.

-- Match play observation No.2 -- When Puckett lost the 5th to Schultz's chip-in par save, she was 3 down. From that point on in the match, she was the stroke play equivalent of 2-under until the 20th hole when she made a conceded bogey after hitting into the water fronting the green.

-- This is a great place for golf, fishing, boating, biking, hiking, etc. They literally have everything here.

-- The red shirts of the volunteers looked like a patchwork of flowers following the match. These devoted folks didn't want to miss a shot. Puckett's valiant comeback was an exciting thing for them to see.

-- The friendships in this event are plentiful and genuine. Almost everybody puts their arm around someone with a small hug. Golf just brings us together.

-- Mount Bachelor is the dominant view when you scan the landscape here in Sunriver. It's best view is from the 16th tee. Pictures don't do it justice.

Compiled by Pete Kowalski, USGA Media Relations