Women's Open This Week

This week the Women's US Open will be in Pennslyvania in Lancaster.  In our household we will pay more attention than ever before because cousin Lauren Doughtie will play in her third open.

What does it mean to play in just one.  During my golfing days when living in Ahoskie and a member of Beechwood Country club our pro was Dan Herring.  He was the club pro but anytime around the men's US Open the membership would always ask Dan about the club pro Dan Herring  that had qualified for two Opens.  He actually made the cut in the 1954 Open at Baltusrol. He also qualified for the first U.S. senior Open.  I heard him say more than once that just qualifying for the Open was what it was all about.  It was our countries National Championship.

Lauren will be playing in the Open for her third time.  While a junior at NC State  she qualified for the open for a top finish in one of the national amateur championships sponsored by the USGA.  She failed to play the weekend but the highlight of that Open was playing a practice round with Annika Sorenstam who in 2008 was the number one women's golfer in the world.

Her senior year at State she won one tournament and at the time she graduated State she was the best golfer there in the short history of women's golf at NC State. She joined the Futures Tour mid year 2009 and spent two full seasons in 2010-11 learning all about the weekly grind of a pro golfer.  Out of the blue in 2011 Lauren qualified for her second Open  by having a spectacular 36 hole day and failed to make the cut .

2012 she won her one and only pro event shooting 66 in the final round by making birdie in the final hole to tie and birdied the first playoff hole to win.  She then in the LPGA qualifying tournament at the end of 2012 tied with eight other people for the final spot  and won the spot to join the LPGA tour.

Her one year playing with the big girls didn't last as she failed to finish in the top 100 and she lost her card and rejoined the Futures in 2014.  All of 2014 and almost half of this season her scoring average has hovered near 74.5 and those scores don't put money in your pocket and doubt in your mind about if this is the end of the road in professional golf.

Then another qualifying US Open qualifier in Chapel Hill when she tied for first.  Her two tournaments since she finished 11th and 14th.  She is playing over the last six weeks her best golf since turning pro.  It gives all of us in the Doughtie clan that she might being playing well enough to play the weekend for the first time in the Open.

I will be watching closer than ever this Thursday  and Friday as Lauren tries to take another step in her golfing future.  To say the least her career at this point can be labeled as a journeyman.  Journeyman can't afford to live on any tour very long.  A weekend of golf in the U S Open  just might spark her to move up in confidence and money to play a little longer.  There is hope this week like no other Open because she is playing great golf right now but we all know, This is the Open.