Tomorrow is the first Day of the Western Woman’s Jr. Amateur being played in Kirkwood Missouri. (Click for lots of pics).

Since the last blog Jordan has travelled from Calgary to Illinois where she spent two and half days working with coach Carl in preparation for this tournament. They got back to basics and worked on the fundamentals.

On Friday morning Jordan had the privilege of going to the Bettinardi Putter Factory in Illinois where she had a fitting and they built her a custom putter to her exact specifications. It was an incredible experience and Carl (who is affiliated with Bettinardi) was on hand to supervise. B is putting with it already and is super confident in it.

On Saturday afternoon Jordan made the 4 hour drive from Bolingbrook Illinois to St. Louis. Yesterday, she played what is called a “CO-AM” which is the same as a Pro-Am except those playing the part of the professionals are the girls who are playing in the tournament. It is an opportunity for the sponsors and the members of the club that is hosting the event to play with the contestants. Jordan’s group was four club members who were super supportive and really a lot of fun. They showed her the course and gave her tons of local knowledge about where to hit the ball and more importantly where NOT to hit the ball. The members were Michael “Mick” Hanrahan, Jon “Doc” Majers, and the father and son team of Ashish & Akash Upadhyay. Jordan was grateful to all four of them and she hopes to keep in touch. She had dinner with them following the almost 6 hour round at the welcome banquet. Somehow in the blistering heat we forgot to take a photo. Hopefully we will come across them in the next few days and rectify this. Both Doc and Mick said they may come out to catch some of the action. Ashish’s daughter Meera is also competing in the event and we wish her luck.

This morning Jordan played a practice round and had a second opportunity to see the course. Greenbriar Hills where the tournament is being held is beautiful private country club and the “hills” part of the name are not just for show. It is a massively undulating course with steep hills and big valleys. It is a ball strikes course with many blind T shots and doglegs. It is narrow and unforgiving with steep cliffs and sheer drops behind the greens if you go long. There is water and there are trees. Each drive needs to be carefully placed or the second shot can easily be blocked. The course has a beautiful symmetry to it but it has to be played perfectly.

The players here are from 8 different countries and 21 different states. The handicaps here are from 2 to +4 we were told this morning which means that everyone here is skilled. 78 players will begin tomorrow for 36 holes of stroke play. This field will be cut down by 62 on Wednesday when the scorecards are finally tallied and all but 16 will be sent home. Those final 16, called “The Sweet 16” will battle it out over the next two days in a match play format. Each match being a single elimination. By end of day Thursday only 4 will remain. Last two rounds on Friday to determine the Champion. Jordan will T off at 10am (11am Eastern Standard).

https://www.golfgenius.com/pages/9535038454128199110

Link to the live leaderboard

https://womenswesternjunior.com/

Link to the tournament website if you want to learn a little more. They will have coverage of the stories and news from the event.

Beautiful Greenbriar Hills

That’s all for now. Thank you for all of the incredible encouragement for Jordan. We will be back to tomorrow night to give you the highlights of the day.

New section for the blog……”Where in the world is Monkey?” Oh the places he will go with the B.

Jordan and her Caddy Ben

Checking in this morning.

Nice cool temps here

Scenes from yesterday’s Co am. It was an amazing show of support for the girls. Midwest Hospitality is legendary.