U.S. Women’s Am: Jensen Castle advances to final with an unexpected win over Rachel Heck

HARRISON, N.Y. – Jensen Castle was ready to pounce.

After battling to stay in stride with the reigning college player of the year all the way around Westchester Country Club in a tight U.S. Women’s Amateur semifinal on Saturday, the 20-year old University of Kentucky junior was stunned when Rachel Heck missed a two-footer on the 18th hole to close out the match.

Bingo.

“It was crazy,” said Castle, who was 2 down with three holes to play. “I was down almost the whole day. … I thought for sure she won. I couldn’t believe she missed it on 18. And when she gave me that opportunity was like, ‘All right, I birdied this earlier. I’m going to birdie this again.’ I went after it. Same wind direction and everything.”

Castle drove just short of the green, chipped on and confidently made birdie from 15 feet away.

The 63rd seed who had little prep time coming in due to a rib injury advanced to Sunday’s 36-hole final against Yu-Chiang Hou when a Heck birdie try from 12 feet lipped out. It was a humbling loss for the sophomore at Stanford, who came in No. 2 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.

It was an emotional walk back to the clubhouse.

“Obviously, that’s not how you want it to go, but it happens,” Heck said. “Everyone misses those putts. It just happened at a bad time. … It’s tough (to regroup), but I played a good playoff hole. She made that putt and I don’t know how mine missed, but it was a good roll.”

Castle even had a difficult time collecting her thoughts after such a swing.

“Gosh, it’s such a blur, like I don’t remember, you know what I mean?” she added. “It had so much fun with Rachel. I knew when I saw the pairings yesterday, I’m like no matter what, whoever wins, the match is going to be good and we’re going to have fun no matter what. And that’s what we did. We had so much fun. We laughed and that’s how golf should be, especially girls golf.”

By moving into the final, Castle gets a spot in next year’s U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles, which isn’t far away from her Columbia, South Carolina home.

There was very little tension in the match until the final hole.

“Oh, my God, it was so fun,” Heck said. “Going into it we knew we were going to have a good match. We were talking about it before, how we were going to have fun with it, we were going to make birdies, we were going to make good shots. During the match I hope people could see how much fun we were having.”

Hou, a junior at the University of Arizona, defeated Valentina Rossi of Michigan State 2-up.

For most of the day, Heck was in control.

Castle was looking for traction when she rolled in a lengthy birdie on the 13th hole, but Heck promptly answered. Castle was two holes down when an overly aggressive chip from Heck slammed into the pin and fell on the 15th.

Heck did give one back when she missed the green and bogeyed the 16th hole, a difficult par 3 down a hill.

Castle did not pick up a club until a week before the championship due to a lingering rib issue. She had no expectations and needed to survive a playoff to move past stroke play. Castle stayed most of the week with a friend of a friend in Greenwich, Connecticut, sleeping on an air mattress. She got upgraded to a twin bed after the quarterfinals.

“I slept good,” she said.

And she’ll need a little more quality rest before taking on Hou. They are scheduled to back on the first tee here at 8 a.m. for the initial 18 holes.

“I don’t know how she played. I don’t care,” said Castle, whose in-the-moment focus has been a strength all week. “It’s match play. It’s anyone’s game. Whatever happens, it’s meant to be.

Mike Dougherty covers boys soccer, boys lacrosse, girls basketball and golf for The Journal News/lohud.com. He can be reached at mdougher@lohud.com, or on Twitter @hoopsmbd, @lohudlacrosse, @lohudhoopsmbd and @lohudgolf.