Golfer Reaches Sweet 16 in National Tourney

Olympia Fields Country Club may be new to her, but Karen Chung has been here before.

‘Here’ in this case is the quarterfinals of the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship.

In 2008, the Livingston golfer advanced all the way to the championship match of the tournament at the tender age of 13. She lost the 36-hole title match to Alexis Thompson of Coral Springs, Fla., 5 and 4 at the Hartford Golf Club in West Hartford, Conn., and she’s been trying to get back to the finals ever since.

Even after two victories Thursday on the South Course of the historic country club in Olympia Fields, Ill., Chung wasn’t fully buying into the argument that her experience with the tournament gave her an advantage.

“I guess it’s half and half,” she said. “I mean, that was three years ago, when I was a little bit younger and I didn’t care about anything. A lot more things are on the line right now.”

In 2009, Chung reached the final 16 before falling to Victoria Tanco of Argentina, 3 and 1 at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. Last year, Chung lost her first match of the tournament in sudden death to Summar Roachell of Conway, Ark. on the 19th hole at The Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst.

Rough beginning

This year, she got off to a shaky start on the first day, shooting a 5-over-par 77 for 18 holes.

“I don’t think it was playing that hard,” she said of the course. “But the way I was striking the ball made it seem sooooo hard.”

She knew she was going to have to step up her play on the second day, when the starting field of 156 players from 35 states and nine foreign countries would be cut to 64.

She did, firing a 1-under-par 71. That left her in a tie for 14th place with, among others, Summar Roachell.

In the first round of match play, Chung jumped out to a lead on the first hole against Mexico’s Marijosse Navarro and was up 3 after five holes. But Chung bogeyed three of the next five holes to allow Navarro to even the match. Chung kept her composure, though, recording birdies on the next two holes to regain control of the match. She eventually won, 3 and 2.

In her opening match Thursday against Paige Lee of Folsom, Calif., Chung again took a quick lead. This time, she never looked back, winning the match 5 and 3.

“I won the first hole and the second hole and then I felt pretty comfortable,” she said. “But I knew the other girl could bounce back on the back nine because there were a lot of holes left, but I focused and pulled through.”

Hard-fought win

Her afternoon match started with the same script as the others, a lead after one hole, but opponent Ashlan Ramsey never let Chung feel comfortable.

“Oh my god, my hands are still shaking from it,” Chung said after finally prevailing, 1 up.

Chung was up 2 after Ramsey’s short putt for par on the 7th hole rimmed out, but then Ramsey began to display the sort of precise play that had allowed her to sideline the tournament’s second seed, Casie Cathrea of California, in their morning match. On the par-4 9th hole, a tremendous second shot by Ramsey left her a one-foot putt for birdie, which she sank to cut Chung’s lead to one.

Chung was still 1 up on No. 16, but her tee shot on the 312-yard, par-4 hole left her with a tough downhill line next to a bunker. She tried to play a low shot to the green, but it didn’t completely clear the berm on the other side of the bunker. She chipped onto the green from there, but she was lying three with a longer putt than Ramsey, who was on the green in two.

That set up the pivotal two putts of the match. Chung saved par with a nice 15-footer and Ramsey just missed her shorter putt for birdie.

“That was huge for me,” Chung said. “If I didn’t make that, I think honestly, Ashlan would have won. But I made it, and that kind of gave me momentum.”

Ramsey also missed birdie putts on 17 and 18. Either would have forced the match into a sudden death playoff.

“I knew she was a solid player,” Ramsey said. “I knew it would take birdies to beat her and I just didn’t have enough.”

Friday morning, Chung will face another tough foe in the tournament quarterfinals, Yu Liu of China. Liu finished one shot ahead of Chung in the first two days of stroke play.