The Rematch: 2018 Finalists Tennant, Wooster Return at CRCC
Defending champion Lara Tennant (pictured above), of Portland, Ore., and Sue Wooster, of Australia, will square off in consecutive years for the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship. Both won a pair of matches on Wednesday at Cedar Rapids Country Club: Tennant in comfortable fashion, while the 2018 runner-up Wooster survived two nail-biters that went to the final green.
This is the first time in 58 playings of the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur that the finalists from the previous year will meet again in the championship match. Tennant defeated Wooster, 3 and 2, last October at Orchid Island Golf & Beach Golf Club in Vero Beach, Fla. The last time the same two players met in back-to-back USGA finals was in 2013-14, when Julia Potter-Bobb and Margaret (Shirley) Starosto played in U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur finals, with Potter-Bobb winning the first and Starosto the second.
Tennant, the No. 5 seed, topped No. 13 Lynne Cowan, of Rocklin, Calif., 5 and 4, in the morning quarterfinals, and No. 24 seed Patricia Ehrhart, of Honolulu, Hawaii, 4 and 2, in the afternoon semifinals. Ehrhart, 53, was playing in her third USGA semifinal since 2016, but was unable to dent Tennant, who won holes 2-3 with birdies and played even-par golf in winds that gusted to 25 miles an hour on the 5,732-yard, Donald Ross-designed layout.
“The wind was swirling, so it was even difficult to predict which direction it was going, so club selection was tough,” said Tennant, who improved to 11-1 in match play in three years of this championship and once again had her father, George Mack Sr., as her caddie. “But I think we did a pretty good job of it.”