For the U.S. Ladies's Open Cinderella, it is all about confidence

LANCASTER, Pa. — Saturday may have gone very otherwise for Wichanee Meechai.

Such is golf. Miss a putt right here, get a nasty bounce there. Anybody who has performed golf is aware of how rapidly some unhealthy luck can flip an 89 right into a 94, a 79 into an 84, a 69 right into a 74.

The latter is what may have occurred to Meechai and maybe it’s what was anticipated. She practically admitted as such. The 31-year-old from Thailand is within the midst of her ninth LPGA season, however nonetheless won’t have been a reputation even a number of the most avid girls’s golf followers have been aware of earlier than this week. She’d by no means completed higher than T5 on the LPGA Tour and hadn’t received anyplace on the planet since 2015.

If Meechai had pale from rivalry Saturday, falling sufferer to a brutal Lancaster Country Club setup after torching it the primary two days with rounds of 69 and 67 to take the lead, nobody would have batted a watch.

However as a substitute, she battled and she or he’ll enter the ultimate spherical of the U.S. Women’s Open tied for the lead with Minjee Lee and Andrea Lee at 5 underneath.

It wasn’t fairly at instances — there have been many one-handed finishes and lengthy seems to be for par — however by making 5 par putts from outdoors 4 ft, she fairly actually turned 74 into 69.

Sounds rather a lot like a really assured participant, however that’s not Wichanee Meechai, at the very least in accordance with Wichanee Meechai.

“I’m the one who has no confidence in any respect,” she stated in a really candid press convention Friday afternoon. “I by no means suppose that I’m ok. I by no means suppose that I can win tournaments on the LPGA, however … if I can keep in my place and I simply maintain working exhausting as I can … I feel it’s going to point out up someday.”

Clearly, the exhausting work has proven up this week as Meechai and Minjee Lee are the one two golfers within the area to interrupt 70 daily this week.

However even after posting the 69 that gave her a share of the lead going into Sunday at a significant, she doubled down on her supposed insecurity.

“To be sincere, yesterday I considered lacking the minimize as a result of I was on this place,” Meechai stated. “Like the primary day I play fairly good, after which the second day I simply [shoot] like 80s and missed the minimize by one. I cried rather a lot. I by no means suppose that I’m going to be on the leaderboard or one thing like that. But it surely’s nice.”

But, on Saturday, a assured and resilient participant plodded her approach round Lancaster Nation Membership.

She birdied the primary gap, drilling a putt from 22 ft proper within the heart of the cup with excellent velocity, not even touching the again of the opening. After 5 straight pars, she hit it into the guts of the inexperienced on the par-5 seventh in two and two-putted to get to 6 underneath for the match.

Then the spherical may have gotten away from her. She hit it lengthy of the tenth inexperienced and made bogey. She did the identical on the difficult par-3 12th, leaving her second shot from simply off the inexperienced 10 ft brief, above the opening.

As her enjoying companion, Andrea Lee, stroked her birdie putt, Meechai stood within the heart of the inexperienced and regarded on, away from the opening, away from the water guarding the inexperienced, away from the a whole bunch of followers who had flocked to comply with the ultimate pairing on a U.S. Open transferring day.

She was alone.

In that point, she discovered her focus.

“I simply really feel like, okay, it’s going to be very downhill, and also you simply give the break and putt it,” Meechai stated. “Simply concentrate on it, and I made it.”

Her focus ended up being precisely what propelled her to play her final six holes in even par and maintain her place atop the leaderboard.

“I feel my concentrate on the sport was fairly good in the present day,” she stated. “I hit a variety of unhealthy pictures, however, you recognize, like I don’t have any unhealthy ideas about my swing or concerning the outcome in any respect. I’m simply staying in my zone and making an attempt to maintain going after which be affected person.”

Her endurance was examined all day Saturday, particularly when her group was placed on the clock after the twelfth gap, however she responded every time she needed to.

She drove it in jail on 4 and 16, however got here again with magical restoration pictures each instances. That took confidence.

She ran off to the thirteenth tee when her group was placed on the clock. She regarded assured.

She responded to a bogey on 14 by lacing a tee shot and throwing a dart for an method at 15 for a birdie. It was a assured stroke.

Meechai could not suppose she’s assured, but it surely’s exhausting to steer the U.S. Open for those who’re not. Ought to she develop into the primary qualifier since Birdie Kim in 2005 to win the U.S. Ladies’s Open, she in all probability received’t lack confidence for much longer.

Jack Hirsh

Golf.com Editor

Jack Hirsh is an assistant editor at GOLF. A Pennsylvania native, Jack is a 2020 graduate of Penn State College, incomes levels in broadcast journalism and political science. He was captain of his highschool golf staff and just lately returned to this system to function head coach. Jack additionally nonetheless *tries* to stay aggressive in native amateurs. Earlier than becoming a member of GOLF, Jack spent two years working at a TV station in Bend, Oregon, primarily as a Multimedia Journalist/reporter, but in addition producing, anchoring and even presenting the climate. He might be reached at [email protected].