West Vancouver’s Jennifer Gu Grabs Lead At Halfway Mark Of B.C. Women’s Amateur Championship
Jennifer Gu Leads At The Halfway Mark Of The BC Women's Amateur - Image Credit Brad Ziemer
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
COBBLE HILL — Jennifer Gu’s second round of the B.C. Women’s Amateur Championship started smoothly enough with six straight pars. Then things got interesting.
“The rest of the round was a little bit of a roller-coaster,” Gu said with a laugh. “I had almost every number from two through seven.”
That included an eagle three on the par 5 18th hole that capped off a round of two-under 70 that left the West Vancouver native with a three-shot lead at the halfway mark of the 118th playing of the Women’s Amateur.
As nice as that eagle was, Gu was even more proud of the way she bounced back from some adversity early on her back nine. Gu had a triple-bogey seven on the par 4 11th hole, but followed that up with two straight birdies on 12 and 13 to get her round back on track.
If the 20-year-old has learned anything from her many years of competitive golf, it’s that adversity is part of golf. Everyone faces it, it’s how you deal with it that’s important. “For as long as I have been playing, I have kind of realized that golf is just about who can best recover from their mistakes,” Gu said after her round. “Everyone is going to make mistakes. It’s how many punches can you take and how you recover from them. You learn from how many mistakes you make.”
Gu just completed her sophomore season at Kent State University, where the 2021 B.C. Junior Girls champion is a marketing major. She said her second round required some serious scrambling. She didn’t drive the ball as well as she normally does and had to really fight to record what was the low round of the tournament so far. “It wasn’t just fairways and greens today,” Gu said. “There was a lot of scrambling.”
Gu’s eagle on 18 came after her 178-yard five-iron approach shot landed about 20 feet from the pin. She then rolled in the putt for her three. “It was just a nice way to finish the round,” she said. Gu stands at one-under par through 36 holes and leads Burnaby’s Meera Minhas by three shots. Minhas, who just completed her first year at Simon Fraser University, closed her second round with two birdies to shoot an even-par 72.
“It was a rough start to my round,” said Minhas, who began her round with bogeys on three of her first five holes. “But I was happy I kept a good attitude and was able to battle back with three birdies on the back nine.”
She drained a 15-foot putt for birdie on the par 3 17th and then after hitting the par 5 18th green in two shots, two-putted for her birdie there. Richmond’s Cadence Ko sits third at three-over par after recording a one-under 71 in her second round. She bounced back nicely after hitting her opening tee shot out of bounds on the par 4 first and making a double-bogey.
“I just had to remind myself that 18 holes is a very long game and anything can happen in the span of 18 holes,” said the 16-year-old Ko, who just completed Grade 11 at Richmond Christian. “My mental game was very good today. I didn’t allow myself to get distracted. Anything that didn’t go my way, I just stuck to my game plan.”
Nanoose Bay’s Shelly Stouffer, who has won the B.C. Mid-Amateur, Mid-Master and Senior Women’s titles this spring, bounced back nicely from her tough opening round with an even-par 72 on Wednesday. “My tempo was off on my putting yesterday and I just three-putted everything,” Stouffer said. “I didn’t have one three-putt today.”
Click HERE to see complete second round scoring.
CHIP SHOT: The field was cut to the top 20 and ties following the second round. The cut fell at 19-over par.