Previewing The Final

By Stuart Hall

Sunriver, Ore. – Anna Schultz has pointed to Thursday’s USGA Senior Women’s Amateur Championship final for nearly 11 months. Robyn Puckett will have had about 11 hours to fathom her appearance.

"This is what we live to play for – a USGA championship,” said Schultz, 52, of Rockwall, Texas, who was last year’s runner-up to Diane Lang. “You don’t get in the finals often, so when you do you have to go seize it. I came into this week wanting to try and put myself in a position to make the final.”

Anna Schultz, of Rockwall, Texas, has advanced to the final for the second consecutive year. (Robert Walker/USGA)

Schultz made that final step by defeating Tanna Lee Richard, of Fort Smith, Ark., 3 and 2 on Sunriver Resort’s Meadows Course on Wednesday afternoon. Schultz will be making her second championship appearance in three attempts.

Puckett, 60, of Irvine, Calif., via Queensland, Australia, hoped to just qualify for match play at week’s beginning.

"Then if you do that, you want to keep playing well,” said Puckett, who pulled off the week’s shocker by ending Lang’s two-year reign as champion, defeating the 52-year-old Jamaican-born Floridian 1 up, in the second semifinal match.

For Lang, the loss was her first in 17 Women’s Senior Amateur matches.

"I’m just ecstatic,” Puckett said.

Puckett, though, has to wait one more night before she can celebrate any kind of accomplishment. Her husband and niece have playfully limited her to one glass of adult beverage a night this week.

The final will shape up as two players with similar games. Both are accurate with their tee balls and both arrived in Sunriver having honed their short games. Both also like the way the 5,974-yard Meadows Course suits their eye.

"I’m just trying to focus on what I have been doing well, keeping in my game and keeping in my rhythm, just doing my things,” said Puckett, who will help represent California at the USGA Women’s State Team Championship later this month.

Schultz had not heard much, if anything, of Puckett before Wednesday’s upset of Lang. What Schultz will find out quickly is that Puckett does not get too rattled.

Having seen a 3-up lead against Lang dwindle to 1-up on the final hole, Puckett deftly saved par from a nasty greenside bunker to halve the hole.

"I hit some really good bunker shots when I had to today,” Puckett said.  

Though the oldest remaining player of Wednesday’s quarterfinalist, Puckett is making just her third Women’s Senior Am appearance. Last year, she advanced to the round of 16.

Robyn Puckett, who advanced to the round of 16 in '06, is a finalist in '07. (Robert Walker/USGA)

Puckett’s background is extensive. She won the Australian Junior and Australian Match Play titles, 33 years ago, and later played for Australia in the 1970 Women’s World Amateur Team Championship. She eventually turned pro, but was later reinstated as an amateur.

Schultz, who was also runner-up at the 2000 Women’s Mid-Am, admits that last year’s 1-down loss to Lang on Oct. 12 has been a constant reminder.  She has worked on conditioning and practicing more in hopes of rectifying last year’s bitter memory.

While playing Lang would have been nice in the final, Schultz said she did not mind who her opponent was -- just as long as she was on the first tee as well.

"I’m just playing the course, and I’ll take whatever it give me,” she said.

The Oregon winds also remind Schultz of back home, but it has taken some adjusting.

"The biggest difference is that in Texas the winds are constant and predictable,” she said. “Here they stop and go. You’re never totally quite sure.”

And while a Schultz vs. Lang final seemed imminent heading into Wednesday’s semifinals -- given Lang’s prolific three-year run – Puckett proved that nothing is ever certain.

Stuart Hall is a writer for the Golf Press Association whose work has appeared previously on USGA Championship Web sites.