By Dave Shedloski
Bethlehem, Pa. – The leading player on the Duramed Futures Tour, Jean Reynolds, is a prime example of a confident player rising to the level of the competition.
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Jean Reynolds, along with caddie Paul Maggiore, try to get a read on the ninth green Thursday. (John Mummert/USGA) |
Reynolds, 24, of Newnan, Ga., last week won her second event on the women’s developmental tour, at the Horseshoe Casino Classic in Hammond, Ind., and on Thursday at the U.S. Women’s Open she made it apparent that she has sustained her playing form.
With a 2-under 69 on the cantankerous Old Course at Saucon Valley Country Club, Reynolds found herself tied for the clubhouse lead with Lorena Ochoa, the No. 1 player in the world, and Cristie Kerr, the 2007 Women’s Open champion.
The second-year Futures Tour player wasn’t that surprised. The golf course is more formidable, as is the competition, and the importance of this week is immeasurably greater, but good golf holds up, no matter the venue.
“Week in and week out you see the same faces … and everyone is competitive, so coming into this week it’s pretty much the same thing,” said Reynolds, one of 27 Futures Tour players in the field. “It’s definitely built my game up.”
It’s a game that she is still building. Reynolds, who shot 11 over par and missed the cut in her Open debut last year at Interlachen Country Club, was a member of Georgia’s winning 2005 USGA State Team Championship, and she reached the quarterfinals of the 2002 U.S. Girls’ Junior. Nevertheless, she decided to not play college golf at the University of Georgia.
“I enjoyed college, joined a sorority, and I studied abroad, and I had a lot of other things going on besides golf,” Reynolds said. “I just enjoyed the five years I had at Georgia, and here I am now.
“I looked at it as [if I had] five years of that much golf intensity, I think I would have burned out very easily.”
Now she is burning up fairways. Reynolds has finished in the top five in six of her 10 Futures starts this year, including third or better in four of her last five. Interestingly, her best round in each of her two victories was a 69. Only three times this year has she shot lower.
Saucon Valley’s Old Course clearly didn’t intimidate her. It helped that she birdied the par-5 first hole with a gap wedge to 1 foot to settle her nerves. She added three more birdies, including holing out a 15-yard bunker shot at the 12th, to offset a couple of bogeys.
“It’s just a confidence thing,” said Reynolds, who admitted that she arrived at Saucon Valley intent on contending and not merely trying to make the cut. “It’s a huge confidence booster coming in here. Wins, they kind of jolt you out there and make things a little bit easier.”
Paul Maggiore, working for just the second week on Reynolds’s bag, said his player could have shot a few strokes lower. He said this was no one-round fluke.
“She’s hitting it great, missed a few chances, but it was really solid,” said Maggiore, whose only other caddie stint with Reynolds resulted in a victory at the season-opening Florida’s Natural Growers Charity Classic. “Great start. Best thing, though, is that she’s a strong finisher.”
Dave Shedloski is a freelance writer whose work has previously appeared on www.uswomensopen.com
