Category Archives: General News

Week in Review: U.S. Jr. Amateur, Women’s Scottish Open, and Jackson Koivun

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There was lots of golf to watch this week and I was surprised at the outcomes in men’s amateur golf, the women’s professional game and the men’s professional game.

U.S. Jr. Amateur at Saucon Valley

The USGA championships are a grind with two days of stroke play to finish in the top 64 to advance to match play.

I was fully expecting Miles Russell to win the U.S. Amateur. He is ranked #1 in the AJGA (American Junior Golf Rankings) and #7 in WAGR (World Amateur Golf Rankings). Russell sailed through stroke play as “medalist” (meaning he finished in first place in stroke play).

In match play Russell won his first match 6 and 5, the next won 4 and 2, the next match won 2 up; and won his quarter final match 6 and 5 and his semifinal match 2 and 1. In the final, championship match, they play 36 holes (18 morning then lunch and 18 in the afternoon). Russell’s opponent was Noah Maclauchlan with an AJGA ranking of 31 and a WAGR of 2,047. Maclauchlan got into the championship as an alternate and did great finishing T39 to make it into stroke play.

Noah Maclauchlan won the U.S. Jr. Amateur against Miles Russell 6 and 5 (ending on the 31st hole). It was certainly nice to see the “under dog” win; but I also felt it was a very disappointing final. It was televised on golf channel and you could see that Russell was off his game all day (with a two-way miss). Russell fought hard but was down in the match the majority of the day. Frankly I feel like this is the problem with the national amateur championships being settled by match play. My opinion is that it just seems if you want to crown the best player in the world then you need to have the championship be stroke play.

Scottish Women’ Open

Jenny Shin won the Scottish Women’s Open. It is her first win in 10 years. Shin is Korean and her other win 10 years ago was the 2016 Volunteers of American Texas Shootout.

Happy for Shin but it was another odd tournament where the big names did not show up to the party. Nelly Korda finished T16 (+2), Lottie Woad finished T37 (+7), and Charley Hull finished T44 (+10). Now every player faced the same cold and windy conditions and only seven players were under par; Shin had two great rounds of 66 and 67 to start and that gave her a huge buffer going into Sunday so that even shooting 75 in the final round she was able to win at 9 under (two strokes ahead of second place.)

Let’s hope at the AIG Women’s Open (which follows the Scottish Open) the big names have a better week.

Jackson Koivun

You know the name Jackson Koivun if you follow college golf because he has been the top golfer for a few years; with an all time NCAA career scoring average record at 68.89 and won every major award for men in college golf. He helped Auburn win the NCAA D1 championship in June (of this year) and in his third PGA Tour tournament start this week he won the 3M Open with a score of 25 under par; and holding off world #1, Scottie Scheffler who finished 22 under par.

We have seen other players come out of PGA Tour University (a program that let’s the #1 college golfer go straight to the PGA Tour) and win (remember Nick Dunlap) but many of those players haven’t made much of a splash lately. Will Jackson Koivun be the “one in a million” that comes out and gives the current superstars a run for their money? A number of PGA Tour pro were asked about Koivun’s game. Most Pros just praised his game but the funniest reply I heard was from Ben Griffin who shared that he joked with Koivun (when he played with him while he was still an amateur), “Tell me when you are going to turn pro so I can plan my retirement.”

One final thing that was interesting, the reporter interviewing Koivun after the win asked what was written on his glove. He said “Confidence, Trust, and Dominate.” Here is the clip on Instagram

I’m Back – Motivated to Start Writing Again!

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I don’t have a lot of folks that read my blog and that was never my reason for starting Golf Expectations. I just have a passion for the sport and enjoy writing so I thought it would be fun.

For those that do follow my blog, I’m sure you noticed I’ve been absent for awhile. No earth shattering reason but I guess I’ve just focused on other things in my life and also feeling that I didn’t want to really write about anything in golf. Not writing about golf seems crazy to me but last year (2022) the whole golf world was focused on the PGA Tour/LIV golf battle and I really got sick of it. The constant focus on the topic on Golf Channel even made me stop watching. But I did find a new way to get my fix watching golf and I’ll share it in my next post.

Another thing taking my focus in 2022 was rebuilding my swing and we all know how time consuming that can be for a golfer. I have always struggled with coming over the top in my swing and I found a new pro to help me work on finally fixing my swing flaw. It was very frustrating at times last year as I tried to take the new swing to the course. Seeing higher scores and my handicap going up was not fun but then I’d see a professional golfer struggle with a swing change and think why would the process be different for an amateur. Actually, a swing change for an amateur is probably even harder because we don’t start with the amazing skills of a professional golfer. They say patience is the most important skill in golf and so I hope all my patience building my new swing will show results in 2023.

Not sure what I will write about this year but I will probably post about my new goal this year which is to get more comfortable playing in golf competitions. I have never enjoyed competitive golf because I have always enjoyed the process of getting better versus beating another golfer. Since moving to South Carolina I am amazed how much the women’s golf scene involves competitions. The appeal of playing in the competitions are the courses. The competitions are often at private courses that I would otherwise not have the opportunity to play so that is a big motivation.

It will be interesting to see what motivates me to write this year. I’m not putting pressure on myself to write every week. I just want to get back to doing something that I enjoy – writing about golf.