2020 SC Women’s Open bodes well for former USC star and for young tournament
Katelyn Dambaugh’s victory in the South Carolina Women’s Open at Cobblestone Park Golf Club last weekend produced the trappings of a fanciful match: a fledgling pro with a promising future earning a triumph in a fledgling tournament with a promising future.
Dambaugh, who grew up in Goose Creek and rewrote the record book in her All-American career at the University of South Carolina, earned her first professional win in her third season in the play-for-pay ranks.
The S.C. Women’s Open also celebrated its third season, and the increase in the quality of the field suggests the event’s future is a bright one.
“Word is getting out and new players are coming to play,” tournament director Clarissa Childs said in previewing the competition.
The Open division featured some former college stars with their eyes on the LPGA Tour and some current college players who will follow in their footsteps. The addition of Duke star Gina Kim, currently ranked 39th among women amateurs in the world, provided star quality.
Dambaugh, who shot 13-under-par 200 for the three rounds, hopes to use the victory for a springboard to success in the major league of women’s golf.
“A real confidence booster,” she said.
Indeed, her introduction to professional golf has been filled with ups and downs — some predictable, some not.
Dambaugh finished USC in 2017, played the Symetra Tour the remainder of the summer and finished in the top 10 in earnings — an achievement that earned a place on the 2018 LPGA Tour.
Dambaugh, who had finished in the top 10 in half of her 12 Symetra starts, experienced the usual rookie struggles, reaching a high point with a top 10 at Kingsmill.
But a downer, surgery on a wrist injury that had plagued her in college, wiped out her 2019 season. “Three surgeries,” she clarified. And the coronavirus outbreak, another downer, put the brakes on the 2020 campaign.
The LPGA resumed competition in July and Dambaugh has a T-64 and a missed cut in her two starts. Off this week with the Tour in Europe, she will play in the Northwest Arkansas Championship that begins Friday, Aug. 28.
“The last couple of years have been rough, kind of bumpy,” she said after winning the S.C. Women’s Open by five strokes. “I know I can’t overdo it in practice after the surgeries, but I played well and want to build on this.”
Her definition of “playing well” included rounds of 65, 66 and 69, the latter inflated by a two-stroke penalty for an illegal cart ride. For the week, she racked up 14 birdies and two eagles with three bogeys. The penalty meant she had to sign for a double-bogey.
If indeed she found her game at the Women’s Open, she found her game at a familiar place. During her years with the Gamecocks (2014-17), the team used Cobblestone for their base of operations.
The familiarity helped, she said, and the tournament “was just what I needed.”
She needed her “found” game to knock off 2019 champion Sydney Legacy, the former Lexington High star who made all-ACC at Clemson and is now assistant pro at Legend Oaks in Summerville. Legacy posted an 8-under 205 and her second-place finish gives her a fourth, a first and a second in the three Women’s Opens.
The tournament is the brainchild of Childs, executive director of the Women’s South Carolina Golf Association. The event moved to Cobblestone in 2020 after two years at the Seabrook Island Club.
Amateurs finished 1-2 in the inaugural Open and captured seven places in the top 10 a year later. At Cobblestone, pros took four of the top five spots with Kim, the Duke standout, breaking the monopoly by taking third.
Kim, the low amateur in the 2019 U.S. Women’s Open at the Country Club of Charleston, came to Cobblestone after qualifying for match-play in the U.S. Amateur. She fired Sunday’s best round, 5-under 66, and her presence perhaps provided a glance into the tournament’s future.
“The tournament’s going to get bigger and bigger,” Childs predicted. “Players will want to play here.”
Chip shots. Burke Cromer, assistant pro at the Spur at Northwoods, finished second in the Carolinas PGA Senior Professional Championship in Pinehurst and earned a berth in the national Senior PGA Championship in October.