Ellen Port
SAN MARTIN, Calif. – Defending champion Ellen
Port, of St. Louis, defeated Susan Cohn, of
Palm Beach
Gardens, Fla., 3 and 2, in the final match
Thursday to win the 52nd USGA Senior
Women’s Amateur
Championship at CordeValle for her sixth career
USGA victory.
Port, 52, a high school teacher and golf coach,
joins some legendary names in women’s golf
with victory
No. 6, which ties her with Glenna Collett Vare
and Hollis Stacy for fourth place on the all-
time USGA
women’s win list. With her victory on the heels
of the 2012 championship at Hershey (Pa.)
Country Club,
Port now trails only JoAnne Gunderson Carner,
who tops the women’s list with eight, and
Carol Semple
Thompson and Anne Quast Sander, who have
each won seven. Bob Jones and Tiger Woods
lead the way
among all players with nine championships
each, while Jack Nicklaus has eight.
“I don't put myself up at their level because
they're the greatest in the game at their
level,” said Port,
who had been tied at five titles with Juli
Inkster and Mickey Wright, among others.
“But, I'm very
blessed in what I've been able to accomplish in
a short time, and I'm thrilled.”
Port, who also owns four U.S. Women’s Mid-
Amateur wins, will captain the USA Team in
the 2014 Curtis
Cup Match, which will be held in June in her
hometown. She came into the championship
having lost her
father-in-law, Robert Port, on Sept. 16; his
funeral is scheduled for Friday in St. Louis.
Port took a 3-up lead through three holes on
Thursday as Cohn struggled to a trio of double
bogeys, and
then the pair matched pars over the next nine
holes at the 5,996-yard, par-72 Robert Trent
Jones Jr.
course.
“I tend to get off to a slow start for whatever
reason,” said Cohn, 50, who works in a golf
shop. “I don’t
know if it’s nerves, probably. Today, I joked to
myself that it’s not every day that you have
the Golf
Channel with you on the first tee. Ellen is as
sweet as can be. She is a calming influence as
an opponent.
But, I wasn’t settled. I can’t blame it on
anything. I hit bad shots.”
The USGA Senior Women’s Amateur, for players
50 years and older, is one of 13 national
championships
conducted annually by the United States Golf
Association, 10 of which are strictly for
amateurs.
On the par-4 13th, Cohn, who was playing in
her first USGA championship in 21 years, won
her first hole
of the match when Port knocked her downhill,
60-foot approach putt 6 feet past the hole
and missed the
comeback putt.
Port regained her 3-up advantage with a two-
putt par on the next hole, the par-4 14th,
when Cohn could
not get up and down from in front of the
green.
Both players birdied the uphill 411-yard, par-5
15th, with Port two-putting from 32 feet and
Cohn making
a 5-foot putt.
On the short 123-yard, par-3 16th, Port hit
the far-right hand portion of the green, 60 feet
away and
Cohn’s tee shot landed 15 yards past the hole
in the back greenside rough.
Port hit her approach putt to within 6 feet and
converted the par putt to close out the
match.
In the course of the nine consecutive halved
holes, Port converted par saves on holes 6, 9
and 11 to
keep Cohn from trimming the advantage.
The highlight was perhaps her third shot into
the green on the 341-yard, par-4 11th. After
driving into a
fairway bunker, Port chose to play short and
left herself 135 yards into a 20-mile-per-hour
wind.
“I just said, I've got to stick this,” said Port,
who celebrated her birthday on the first day of
the
championship. “I've been hitting my irons well
all week, and (caddie) Carlos (Cortez) gave me
great
numbers all week, too. He was so quick at the
yardage, there was no doubt. I took a 6‑iron; I
was 135
yards away into a two‑club wind and just
knocked it down right at the flag.”
“Ellen is an amazing player – I expect her to
make par or better,” said Cohn, who played
collegiate golf
at the University of North Carolina, earning
four letters. “She did make amazing up and
downs but
somehow in my brain she is going to make a
par or better and she does.”
Port, who is 12-0 in matches in this
championship over two years, is the first
player to win in back-to-
back years since Diane Lang in 2005 and 2006.
Seven other players have won in consecutive
years in the
history of the championship. Carolyn Cudone
has the record with five consecutive
championships from
1968 through 1972.
En route to the championship match, Cohn
defeated 2009 Senior Women’s Amateur
champion Sherry
Herman, of Holmdel, N.J., in the third round in
19 holes, and 2004 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur
champion
Corey Weworski, of Carlsbad, Calif., in the
quarterfinals in 20 holes.
All quarterfinalists are exempt from qualifying
for the 2014 USGA Senior Women’s Amateur,
to be played
Sept. 13-18 at Hollywood Golf Club in Deal,
N.J.
Port receives a gold medal and custody of the
Senior Women’s Amateur Championship Trophy
for one ye
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