Twelve teams of five players played three rounds, counting their best four scores each day of the women’s Big 12 golf tournament. Of course, Sunday afternoon at the Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club, it came down to one stroke.
It belonged to Texas A&M’s Sarah Zwartynski, who came up short and left with her third shot on the OU course’s par 5 finishing hole, but was left with an eight-foot par putt after pitching up from the below the bunker that guards the left side of the green.
Oklahoma State medalist Caroline Hedwall had drained a 20-foot birdie putt, forcing Zwartynski to make her par putt for an Aggie victory.
Zwartynski stroked the putt, watched, then pumped her first, then thought “Oh, no!” … a split second before the ball lipped in the right edge of the cup.
With that, A&M posted a 54-hole total of 896, 32 over par, or 74.67 strokes per counted round, one stroke better than OSU’s 897 total.
Zwartynski wasn’t sure if she had to make the putt to reach a playoff or make the putt to win outright. It was only afterward she learned OSU’s Victoria Park, in the next to last group, had missed a three-foot comebacker and made bogey at the last, giving the Aggies an extra stroke to play with.
“I knew I had to make it,” Zwartynski said.
That she did, even if she overestimated the perfection of her final effort.
“I thought I had it straight in,” she said, though lipping it in didn’t bother her in the least.
It was a sweet victory for the Aggies, who had finished second to the Cowgirls in each of the last two conference tournaments. It was made even sweeter by the nature of their victory. Not only was it by the slimmest of margins, but it was after trailing the Cowgirls by 11 strokes entering the day.
Trying to direct her team in the most individual of games, A&M coach Trelle McCombs had one piece of advice all her players could follow.
“Our game plan was very specific,” she said. “It was to think about what you wanted to do with every shot.” It worked.
On a third straight very windy day, A&M was the only team in the field to break 300 in the final round.
Zwartynski answered when the pressure was greatest, yet wouldn’t have had the chance had Sarah Beth Davis not posted the day’s only round in the 60s with a 69.
“I kind of call them my comeback kids because they never count themselves out,” McCombs said.
Hedwall dominated the individual race right up to her final putt. With a closing 73, she failed to break par a third straight day, but after opening with rounds of 70 and 67, her 6 under par tourney-record 210 total was still eight strokes better than Baylor’s Hannah Burke, who came in second.
As for the host school, Oklahoma improved seven strokes from a very disappointing second-round 315, yet it wasn’t enough to pull the Sooners out of 11th place.
Barring a miracle, OU’s season will end without an invitation into NCAA regional play. If it’s any consolation, the Sooners put on a heck of a tournament, undecided until the very last stroke.
