Opinion | Dream run ends for Richmond Hill golfer Monet Chun. Time to start a new one

In golf, especially in match play, one sometimes needs his or her opponent to slip up on occasion to emerge victorious.

A hooked drive here, a missed putt there. Perhaps a mental blunder or two as well.

In Sunday’s U.S. Women’s Amateur 36-hole final, Richmond Hill’s Monet Chun received little such charity from her opponent. Saki Baba, the 17-year-old Japanese sensation Chun faced, was basically perfect at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash.

Baba, the 45th-ranked amateur in the world and the No. 34 seed after stroke play, raced out of the gate, winning four of the first five holes to take a big early lead. Chun, 21, got one back with a birdie on six — the only morning hole that Baba played over par — but Baba won the next two holes and then took two more at 13 and 14 to build a sizable 7-up lead after 18.

Baba’s morning score was 5 under par; Chun was 2 over.

A glimmer of hope emerged for the Canadian in the afternoon when she won the second and third holes of the second 18 — the 20th and 21st holes of the match. An aggressively holed birdie putt from 15 feet reduced the deficit to 6-down, and then Chun received one of those match-play gifts when Baba missing a shorty to lose another hole.

That was it for the presents, however, and the momentum swing was short-lived.

Chun missed a short birdie putt to halve the 22nd hole, then watched Baba chip in for birdie on the 23rd. Just like that the lead was back to 7-up. Baba then won the next five holes to end the match early, clobbering Chun 11 and 9. The Japanese golfer was an astounding 9 under par over the 26 holes the two women played.

“It was pretty amazing just to watch,” said Chun. “She was going for every pin, making every putt, and that’s hard to match up.”

Despite Sunday’s loss, Chun has enjoyed a phenomenal four months.

In late April, she won the Big Ten Conference individual title, helping her University of Michigan Wolverines to their first conference championship in school history. Then in July, Chun won the Canadian Women’s Amateur championship at Kitchener’s Westmount club thanks in large part to a third-round 66.

The runner-up at the U.S. Women’s Amateur earns an exemption into next year’s U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links provided she is still an amateur at that time. That’s the plan for Chun, entering her junior year at Michigan where she is studying kinesiology.

It’s been a remarkable stretch for a golfer who struggled mightily with her game the last couple of years. Once one of the top-ranked juniors in North America, Chun went through a fallow patch where she struggled to break 80, but rediscovered her form with the help of coach Matt Wilson, formerly with Golf Canada’s high-performance program and now director of instruction at Baltusrol in New Jersey.

“I wasn’t very steady, like, swing-wise, so being here right now is actually a huge accomplishment for me,” Chun said after Saturday’s semifinal victory. “I feel like this past year in school this season was probably the best I’ve played so far, so I’m pretty happy with where I am.”

Placed in golf camps as a kid by her then non-golfer parents because they figured it was a sport in which their daughter couldn’t get hurt, Chun had been trying to become the third Canadian to win the U.S. Women’s Amateur after Marlene Streit in 1956 and Cathy Sherk in 1978. She’d also been attempting to become the second straight Canadian to win a USGA women’s title after Nanoose, B.C.’s Shelly Stouffer took the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur two weeks ago in Alaska.

Chun was the first Canadian to advance to the U.S. Women’s Amateur final since Brooke Henderson in 2014. That year, the 16-year-old Henderson had a 3-up lead with 10 holes to play, but lost five of the final nine holes to fall to American Kristen Gillman.

Chun never had such a chance given Baba’s excellence. Baba played the last six holes in 5 under. She had won her semifinal match 7-and-6 and her quarterfinal 4-and-3. Her 11-and-9 win over Chun was the third-largest in the event’s history and the widest margin since 1961.

Afterward, Chun reiterated her excitement about having made the final and for her next start, which will be in Ottawa at the CP Women’s Open. Her Canadian Women’s Amateur victory earned a spot in the national championship — returning after a two-year absence because of COVID-19 — which will be her first start in a professional tournament.

After her TV time over the weekend, she’ll play a supporting role there to hometown hero Henderson, with whom she now shares something in common. Even though both women would have wanted a different outcome in their U.S. Amateur final.

Jason Logan is the editor of SCOREGolf magazine, which is co-owned by Torstar, the Star’s parent company. He is based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @jasonSCOREGolf

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