Jensen Castle Makes Curtis Cup Team with U.S. Women’s Am Win
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky women’s golfer Jensen Castle was officially named to the 2021 USA Curtis Cup Team on Monday by virtue of winning the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur this past week.
Castle is a member of the eight-woman team that will compete Aug. 26-28 at Conwy Golf Club in North Wales vs. Great Britain and Ireland.
The UK junior-to-be won the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur on Sunday with a 2-and-1 victory over Arizona’s Yu-Chiang (Vivian) Hou in the 36-hole championship match at the Westchester Country Club’s West Course in Rye, New York.
In defeating some of the nation’s best players – including Kennedy Pedigo, the No. 2 overall seed, in the opening of match play; Rachel Heck, the 2021 NCAA individual champion, in the semifinals; and Hou, the 2020 Women’s Golf Coaches Association Freshman of the Year, in the championship match – she earned automatic exemption into the Curtis Cup, among a number of major national tournaments.
Castle is also now exempt for the next 10 U.S. Women’s Amateurs and earned invitations to the 2021 Women’s British Open and the 2022 August National Women’s Amateur. By making Sunday’s finals, Castle already clinched a spot in next year’s U.S. Women’s Open after qualifying as an amateur this year. Due to scheduling conflicts, Castle will not participate in the Women’s British Open later this month.
Instead, Castle will focus her attention on the prestigious 41st Curtis Cup as the first Kentucky Wildcat to ever make the team.
The Curtis Cup Match is a biennial international women’s amateur golf competition between the U.S. and the team of Great Britain and Ireland (GB&I). It consists of six foursomes (alternate-shot) matches, six four-ball matches and eight singles matches over three days of competition. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this will be the first Curtis Cup since 2018, which the U.S. won in resounding fashion, 17-3.
Notable past USA Curtis Cup Team members include U.S. Women’s Open champions JoAnne Gunderson Carner, Paula Creamer, Juli Inkster, Cristie Kerr, Patty Sheehan, Hollis Stacy and Michelle Wie, as well as past and present LPGA stars such as Stacy Lewis, Lexi Thompson, Beth Daniel, Jessica Korda, Nancy Lopez and Dottie Pepper.
This year’s U.S. team includes the three previous selections Heck (Stanford) Rose Zhang (Stanford) and Allison Corpuz (Southern California), who earned automatic exemptions earlier as the top three Americans in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, and Monday’s five remaining members, Castle, Gina Kim (Duke), Rachel Kuehn (Wake Forest), Brooke Matthews (Arkansas) and Emilia Miglaccio (Wake Forest). Sarah Ingram, a two-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion and three-time Curtis Cup Team member, will serve as the captain.
In winning the U.S. Women’s Amateur, Castle became the first No. 63 seed to win the Robert Cox Trophy and the third No. 63 seed in United States Golf Association history to win a title since seeding began in the 1980s, according to the USGA.
Played annually and organized by the USGA, the U.S. Women’s Amateur has been played since 1895. There are no age restrictions, but to make the field is an achievement within itself with a record 1,560 entries and a maximum USGA Handicap Index of 5.4.
Castle navigated through a field of 156 players and captured one of the final two spots from stroke play in a 12-for-2 playoff to make match play and then defeated some of the nation’s best amateur golfers in the head-to-head format.
In a week of unforgettable play, Castle’s resiliency stood out the most. On Saturday, in the semifinals, Castle trailed Heck, the 2021 consensus national collegiate player of the year, by two holes with three to play. She rallied to force extra holes and won it on the 19th hole with a 20-foot make for birdie.
Castle trailed Hou by two holes after the morning’s 18-hole round but came back in the afternoon with a vengeance. She won four of the first eight holes after the restart to take a 2-up lead. She stopped a potential Hou comeback attempt with a birdie on the 35th hole of the day to win 2 and 1.
The South Carolina native did all of that while coming back from a stress fracture in one of her ribs. After helping Kentucky to the NCAA Championship Finals in May – the program’s first appearance since 1992 – playing in the U.S. Women’s Open in June, and then winning a second straight Carolinas Four-Ball Championship with Kuehn at the beginning of July, Castle had to withdraw from several summer tournaments due to the injury. She picked up a club for the first time last week in nearly a month.
Castle arrived at Kentucky as the most decorated signee in program history. She has been as good as advertised with 17 appearances in two seasons, seven top-20 finishes and a 73.6 stroke average. She led the 2019-20 team to two championships while setting the program’s single-season scoring record with 71.9 strokes per round as a freshman.
Kentucky’s 2021-22 schedule was released last month. Returning all five players – including Castle – who qualified and played in the NCAA Championship Finals, the Wildcats will play in nine regular-season events before the SEC Championship and postseason play. After navigating through the COVID-19 pandemic, UK will return to a traditional schedule with four tournaments in the fall, four in the spring, a head-to-head matchup with rival Louisville and then the postseason.
For the latest on the Kentucky women’s golf team, follow the team on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.
