12-Year-Old Jenny Guo Matches Course Record With Back-9 Blitz At Balfour
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
BALFOUR - Jenny Guo has all 14 clubs in her golf bag at this week’s B.C. Women’s Amateur Championship, which is a bit of a change. At a recent Maple Leaf Junior Tour event at The Hills at Portal Golf Course in Surrey, the 12-year-old West Vancouver resident played the first round with only seven clubs — three wedges, her 8-, 6- and 5-irons and a 5-wood. She shot an 84.
The second day, Guo used nine clubs — she added her putter and driver — and shot 71 and won her age group. Her coach Noah Lee, who is in Balfour to caddy for Guo at the Women’s Amateur, came up with the idea to help relieve some stress.
“She started having a little bit of anxiety about playing in high-level tournaments,” Lee said. “So I wanted her to just try to go out and have fun and at the same time give her some problem-solving skills because when you have fewer clubs to work with you have to figure out something else.”
Apparently, that little exercise worked. In Wednesday’s second round of the Women’s Amateur, Guo played the back nine at Balfour Golf Course in just 30 shots. Her five-under 67 vaulted her into a tie for second place. “I had a lot of good shots on the front nine, but I couldn’t make any putts,” Guo said. “I had good speed but the ball was just missing the hole. And then on the back nine a lot of my putts dropped.”
Not many putts dropped that day she played without her putter. “Putting with my wedge the first day was the biggest challenge,” she said with a laugh. Guo began playing golf when she was eight and it didn’t take long for her to start winning.
“I really enjoy making birdies,” said Guo, who is in Grade 6 at West Bay elementary school in West Vancouver.
Guo had five birdies en route to her her back-nine 30 and another on the front nine. Her only hiccup came on the par 5 fourth hole, which she bogeyed. Her 67 matched the course record at Balfour.
One of the people she shares that record with is Langley’s Amy Lee, who fired her 67 in Tuesday’s first round. Lee followed that up with another solid round — a four-under 68 — that has her at nine-under through 36 holes. She will enter Thursday’s final round with a five-shot lead over Guo and Kaylee Chung of Vancouver.
After scrambling to make par on the par 5 first hole, Lee reeled off three straight birdies that she said helped settle her down. “On the first hole I hit my second shot into the trees and I had to punch out and I barely made par,” said Lee, who is just finishing Grade 10 at Walnut Grove secondary in Langley. “So I was kind of questioning my swing early, but making those three birdies in a row kind of gave me some reassurance. It definitely gave me some momentum.”
The 16-year-old Lee, the reigning B.C. Junior Girls champion, won’t be easy to catch. Her game seems in fine form and she is coming off an individual win at last week’s B.C. High School Triple-A Golf Championship. Lee also appears to have found a comfort level at Balfour.
“It’s really a nice course and the front and back nines are quite different,” she said. “I always thought the front was easier, so I think I play more aggressively on the front and try to make more birdies. On the back nine I try to play a little more safe. Course management is definitely one of the key points here.”
Like Guo, Chung also toured the back nine in 30 shots in the second round. She started her back nine with five straight birdies and added another on the par 4 16th. Her bid for a 29 was foiled when she bogeyed the par 5 17th. “I had a tap-in birdie on 10 and after that I just starting making 30-foot putts,” said Chung, a 16-year-old Grade 10 student at Lord Byng Secondary in Vancouver.
Chung, who shot a three-under 69 in Wednesday’s second round, has come a long way the past couple of years. She recounted how she had failed to break 100 in one round two years ago at her first B.C. Women’s Amateur.
“I played two years ago and and shot 101, so that’s like a 30-stroke improvement, which is crazy,” she said.
The B.C. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship for players aged 25 and older is also being contested at Balfour. Surrey’s Aram Choi fired her second straight round of even-par 72 and has a seven-shot lead on defending champion Shelly Stouffer of Nanoose Bay and Christina Spence-Proteau of Port Alberni.
Choi, a former pro who recently was reinstated as an amateur, is surprised to be in the hunt for a title. “I just wanted to come here and have fun,” she said. “I haven’t practised much lately, so I wasn’t expecting much of myself. My game is rusty so we will see how it goes tomorrow.” Spence-Proteau and Stouffer have a one-shot lead on Jackie Little of Procter in the Mid-Master division for players 40 and over.
Click HERE to see complete scoring after round two of the 2024 B.C. Women's Amateur at Balfour GC.
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