Schultz Gives Texas Shot At Another USGA Double

By David Shefter, USGA

Carefree, Ariz. – Anna Schultz isn’t afraid to admit it. In fact, she welcomes the conversation.

The reigning USGA Senior Women’s Amateur champion is well aware of what she can accomplish this week at the 2007 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur. She knows one Texas two-step has already been achieved this summer with Colt Knost taking the U.S. Amateur Public Links and U.S. Amateur titles.

Why not a another double-double from the Lone Star State?

Anna Schultz of Rockwall, Texas, is three matches away from another USGA title in 2007. (John Mummert/USGA)

Schultz, 52, of Rockwall, Texas, is halfway there after gutting out a 19-hole third-round win over 26-year-old Veronique Drouin of Canada Tuesday afternoon. Three more victories and Schultz would become the seventh player in history to win two USGA titles in the same year. Nobody has ever won the Senior Women’s and Women’s Mid-Amateur in the same year. In fact, Pearl Sinn is the lone female to achieve the double, winning the 1988 Women’s Amateur Public Links and Women’s Amateur.

“That’s my goal right now,” said a smiling Schultz, who ousted Dana Harrity, 2 and 1, in Tuesday morning’s second round. “If Colt can do it, I can do it.

“It doesn’t bother me. It’s kind of a little dream. You sit there and dream it and it’s fun to think about. There’s no pressure.”

Especially when you can perform under pressure. Schultz was on the verge of elimination at the 18th hole after her approach rolled beyond the green and down an embankment. Meanwhile, Drouin, the assistant women’s golf coach at the University of Georgia, stuffed her approach to 5 feet. Drawing on her vast experience, Schultz calmly pitched the ball to within 7 feet and holed the putt. Drouin misread her birdie attempt and off the two competitors went to the first tee (19th hole).

“We thought it was going to come back to the right,” said Drouin of the birdie attempt to win the match. “It broke more than I played it. It was a good putt.”

Given new life, Schultz came up just short with approach to the par-4 first, while Drouin’s 9-iron second shot was blocked to the left. She flubbed her first chip and failed to hole out with her fourth shot. Schultz rolled her third shot a foot from the flag and was conceded the par putt and match.

“Experience is everything,” said Schultz, the runner-up at the 2000 Women’s Mid-Amateur and ’06 Senior Women’s Amateur. “The younger ones – and my [three golf-playing] sons are like that too – tend to get a little frustrated and kind of get mad and muscles tend to tighten up. You just can’t do that out here. You just keep grinding and don’t give them anything.”

Schultz is one of two seniors (50 and over) left – 51-year-old Joan Higgins is the other – and she’s managed to survive with an ultra-straight driver along with a wickedly hot putter, which she purchased last October. Not only did Schultz hole the clutch putt at 18, but she made a 30-foot birdie at 17 to square the match and made a nice 8-foot birdie at the par-3 eighth on top of Drouin’s birdie putt. Schultz owned a 3-up lead at the turn, but lost three of the next four holes.

The left-handed Drouin found the desert for the third time in the match on 14 to lose the hole, but rallied with birdies at 15 and 16 to take her first lead of the match.

“I just told myself [at the turn] that there are nine holes left and that’s a lot of golf in match play,” said Drouin, who played her college golf at Kent State. “I was playing better, I was swinging better [and] I was putting better, but I just came up short.”

Added Schultz: “You’ve got some younger kids here who hit it [far], and even the 40-year-olds hit it a mile. But I can get on every green in regulation and it doesn’t matter what I have to do to get there. Even if I have to hit a 9-wood and they are hitting an 8-iron, that’s okay.”

Halfway through the championship, it’s been a winning formula.

David Shefter is a USGA staff writer. E-mail him with questions or comments at dshefter@usga.org.