SeungHa Choi doesn’t consider the Golf Club at Heather Ridge her home course, but she does live on the ninth hole, and she certainly made herself at home on the Aurora layout this week during the CWGA Junior Match Play Championship.
Less than four weeks after winning the Class 5A state high school title, the 17-year-old added her first CWGA championship, defeating Mikayla Tatman of Longmont 2 and 1 in Thursday’s final.
“I feel so happy and proud of myself,” said Choi, a senior-to-be at Overland High School. “It was fun.”
Choi, who was born in Korea but has lived in the U.S. the last seven years, has been on quite a run of late. Besides winning the state high school championship and the CWGA title, she recently qualified for her second U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship.
“I think I’m getting better each year,” said Choi, who calls CommonGround her home course. “I want to play in college — I’m trying to get a full scholarship — so I think I practice more.”
In Thursday’s final match, Choi beat an opponent who will be playing Division I college golf starting in the fall. Tatman (pictured at left watching a Choi tee shot) has signed a letter-of-intent with Colorado State University. Both Choi and Tatman take lessons from CommonGround co-director of instruction Elena King, who was an interested observer on Thursday.
“I love SeungHa,” said Tatman, who finished seventh in the 5A state high school meet after being paired with Choi in the final round. “She’s fun to play with. She’s a great stick and she’s fun to watch play. She was the better (player) today.”
On a day neither player was at her best, Tatman won the first hole with a par, but Choi took the next three and was never less than 2 up the remainder of the way. Choi opened the door slightly by hitting balls out of bounds and losing holes Nos. 9 and 11, but Tatman missed an opportunity to go 1 down when she failed to drop a 4-foot par on No. 12.
After losing No. 13, Tatman won the 16th hole with a par to move back to 2 down, but Choi closed out the match with a 2-putt par from 25 feet on the par-4 17th.
The 3-foot par “was a short putt but I was so nervous,” Choi said. On the hole before, “I chunked a shot and made bogey, and that made me more nervous.”
Tatman, who helped Skyline win a 5A state high school team title in 2009, had one of her best tournaments despite the loss Thursday. On Monday, she shot the first under-par round of her life (1-under 71) in sharing medalist honors, then went 24 and 18 holes to win her first two matches.
Losing in the final “is disappointing, of course, but I had a heck of a week out here,” Tatman said. “I would have liked to hold up that championship trophy, but SeungHa played great and I’m proud of her. I’m going to take away that it’s been a really good learning experience. I’ve had a blast with these girls. I hung in there every day. I got myself into this place and I’m very pleased. I couldn’t have asked for a better last junior match play (for me). It was definitely a huge accomplishment.”
Kathleen Kershisnik of Columbine Country Club earned the championship flight consolation title on Thursday with a 3 and 1 win over Taylor Buck of CommonGround.
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