In IWO, a child will lead them

    Writing from Romeoville, Illinois
    Monday, July 27, 2015

    Madasyn Pettersen has been playing golf for 11 years.
    She’s 15.
    Monday, her 4-under-par 68 paced the field in the first round of the 21st Illinois Women’a Open at Mistwood Golf Club. And she wasn’t surprised at all.
    “It was just a normal day,” Pettersen said.
    For her, at least.
    The Rockford teen had fired a 68 in the middle round of last week’s AJGA Midwest Junior Players Championship at Mistwood, and eventually finished second to Naperville’s Bing Singhsumalee.
    This time, Pettersen leads Chelsea Harris and Jessica Yuen by two strokes, and Ember Schuldt and Katy Jarochowicz by three strokes, with 36 holes to play. Singhsumalee is tied for seventh after at even-par 72.
    Given the spate of youthful golfers on the international stage, this shouldn’t be a surprise.  Pettersen is just three years younger than top-ranked Lydia Ko, for instance. The two share one trait: They can putt.
    Pettersen scored five birdies, including three in a row, after bogeying the par-4 second hole on Monday. The 30-footer for a bird on the par-4 fourth hole was her longest.
    “I’m just a great putter,” Pettersen said, volunteering that she three-putted twice.
    She also has high goals.
    “I want to break Kathy Whitworth’s record of 88 wins,” Pettersen said.
    It’s impressive enough that she knows of Whitworth, whose last victory was 30 years ago. But Pettersen isn’t brash, just bubbly.
    And her resume is growing. She won the IWGA Junior last year, two years after getting disqualified for using a range finder she thought was allowed. At 7, she was playing so well the women who run the Rockford Women’s Golf Association were worried she would beat them in the Rockford Women’s Golf Classic, and arranged for her to play in the IWGA Junior instead.
    That was only her fourth year on the links. Last year, their worry finally came true, Pettersen winning after a year off to fight an inflamed shoulder, plus a stomach-related hopsital stay.
    So far this week, she’s again beating all the girls, young and old. And this time, it’s amateur and pro.
    Harris, for instance, is the assistant coach of the women’s team at Illinois State. She posted her 2-under 70 on the 6,249-yard layout playing with Yuen.
    “I focused on tempo,” Harris said. “Made five birdies. Having three bogeys in a row fired me up.”
    Those came on Nos. 8, 9, and 10, and were followed by birdies on the 11th, 13th and 15th holes – the latter a tap-in after missing a 6-footer for eagle on the par-5 in Kelpie’s Korner. She had been 2-under until riding the bogey train, but finished 2-under, which bodes well for the second round.
    “I’ve only played 10 times this summer,” Harris said. “But this is my favorite tournament of the year behind the U.S. Open.”
    Yuen’s 70 was less eventful, with three birdies and a bogey, but she closed with a birdie on the par-5 18th, one of only five there on the day, and essentially picked up two strokes on the field.
    Yuen, a Missouri recruit who will be a senior at Nequa Valley this fall, switched teachers last year, and says working with John Platt, Mistwood’s ace instructor, has paid off.
    “I feel more confident in my swing,” Yuen said. “I hit 15 greens. I was attacking the hole all day. Tomorrow, I want to repeat it or do better.”
    The field averaged 77.11 strokes, the most impressive the one by Brooke Ferrell of Edgerton, Wis., on the par-3 seventh hole. Her 166-yard 7-iron found the bottom of the cup.
    “I actually wasn’t very happy with the shot,” Ferrell said of her first impression of her hole-in-one. “It was a chunk-and-run.”
    Ferrell finished with a 1-under 71 and is in the thick of it.

    – Tim Cronin