Mike McGetrick, one of the top 25 golf instructors in the U.S. according to Golf Digest, has served as swing coach for players who have won U.S. Women’s Opens and LPGA Championships.
And, as of Thursday, he can say he has a pupil who has pulled off one of the bigger upsets in the history of CWGA junior championships. And that pupil just happens to be McGetrick’s daughter.
Lindsay McGetrick of Colorado Golf Club, who learned the game from the same person who has taught Juli Inkster, Meg Mallon, Beth Daniel and others, rallied Thursday to win the CWGA Junior Match Play Championship, overcoming two-time defending champ Somin Lee in the process.
McGetrick was 3 down after seven holes, but won the match 1 up with a 25-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole at Thorncreek Golf Club.
“This is a huge accomplishment for me,” said McGetrick, a senior-to-be at Valor Christian High School. “I played in a tournament last week and struggled, and was about ready to quit golf. It’s good to get back on track and know I can play good golf.”
Lee had been a big favorite to capture the title again. Not only had she won the last two CWGA Junior Match Plays, but she’d finished first in the last three CWGA junior championships (including the 2009 Junior Stroke Play). And just last month, she won the 5A girls state high school championship by six strokes.
Lee, an Overland High School senior-to-be, was trying to become the first player since the early 1970s to win three straight CWGA Junior Match Plays.
“I wanted to win three straight, but (Lindsay) played good golf and I didn’t make any putts,” Lee said. “It’s disappointing, but it’s done.”
McGetrick had not only never been in contention for this title in the past, but this was the first year she even earned a spot in the championship flight. In stroke-play qualifying, she shot 79, compared to Lee’s 67.
But the 16-year-old — she’ll turn 17 next month — turned it on in match play. In the quarterfinals, she rallied from 4 down after 12 holes to win 1 up. She was 2 under par in an easy semifinal win, then summoned another comeback on Thursday, when both she and Lee shot 75.
McGetrick certainly knew how formidable Lee was even before Thursday’s match.
“I was really, really nervous,” she said. “I was shaking on the putting green. I was freaking out. But I went in with a positive attitude.”
Still, McGetrick bogeyed three of the first seven holes, losing to pars by Lee in each case. But things turned on the par-3 eighth hole, where McGetrick zeroed in with her tee shot and made a 2½-foot birdie to win the hole.
“At first I kind of doubted myself, but I never gave up,” McGetrick said. “And after I made the birdie, I was like, “˜I am going to come back and get this done.'”
The birdie on No. 8 began a stretch where McGetrick won four of seven holes. In that span, Lee lost one hole with a three-putt and another on a four-putt after hitting the green of a par-5 in two.
McGetrick was 1 up after 16 holes, but she hooked her second shot on the 17th, left a pitch short of the green and took double bogey, evening the match.
Both players were within birdie range on the par-4 18th, but McGetrick struck first by draining a 25-foot uphill putt. “That felt amazing; it was so awesome,” she said. Lee then needed to make a 15-foot birdie to force extra holes, but her ball ran by the cup.
“I left a lot of putts out there,” Lee said. “I had no birdies today. I think that was the problem. It’s kind of disappointing. There are a lot of regrets today.”
For McGetrick, Thursday marked her most significant victory. Like Inkster, Mallon and Daniel, Lindsay McGetrick can credit Mike McGetrick for helping hone her golf game. In Lindsay’s case, that’s dad.
“It’s always nice to have him there,” she said of Mike, a founding partner of Colorado Golf Club, site of last month’s Senior PGA Championship. “He’s helped me a lot and whenever something is wrong I can go straight to him since he’s in the same house. I don’t have to call up a coach and go to a different course.”
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