SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Gabriela Ruffels may have had trouble reading the rain-softened putting surfaces at South Bend Country Club Saturday early in the final round of the Epson Tour $200,000 Four Winds Invitational.
But once she got her contact problems figured out during the storm-delayed final round in the 54-hole event, the 23-year-old Melbourne, Australia, resident and winner of the 2019 U.S. Women’s Amateur, didn’t have any problem reading the numbers on the Four Winds winner’s check of $30,000.
Ruffels’ 12-foot putt at the 195-yard 17th hole for birdie — her fourth of the day and 13th of the tournament — more than made up for her only bogey earlier in the round following a storm delay of one hour and 45 minutes. That birdie gave her a three-stroke lead at 12-under-par that she carried to the end of a three-under-par round of 69 which propelled her over runners-up Becca Huffer of Denver and Katherine Smith of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.
You can be sure Ruffels, who at the end of 2022 missed the entry deadline for LPGA Q-Series, certainly won’t have any problem reading the fine print from her welcoming letter to the LPGA when it arrives in a few weeks.
Already with victories at the Carlisle Women’s Golf Classic in March and the Garden City Charity Classic in May, Ruffels survived a champagne shower from tour friends Jillian Hollis and Amelia Garver, a former USC teammate from New Zealand, and then shared a hug with her caddy and mother Anna Maria Fernandez, a former tennis player for the Trojans. Her third Epson Tour victory, the most by any player this season, lifted Ruffels’ season-leading earnings in 12 events to $156,283.
“That was my goal at the beginning of the year, to win three times and to solidify my spot on the LPGA Tour,” said Ruffels, who wasn’t bothered by the weather delay. “Mom told me to stay patient and I was happy to get back out after the restart.”
Ruffels, Huffer and France’s Agathe Laisne barely had reached the first green when the skies opened up over the par-72, 6,414-yard layout with smallish greens on rolling hills surrounding South Chain Lake. Thunder brought everyone to the clubhouse.
Ruffels was already feeling the effects of some contact issues when she returned to the first green to make a six-foot birdie putt to take a two-stroke lead over Laisne, No. 5 on the money list coming into the tournament and already a winner this season, and a three-shot cushion over Huffer, who played her collegiate golf 12 miles away at Notre Dame’s Warren Golf Course and is still looking for the first victory of her 11-year Epson/LPGA career.
Ruffels’ approach to the par-4, 325-yard second hole was left of the elevated green. She eventually made bogey and was suddenly tied at 9 under with Laisne, who birdied the first two holes. But after Laisne bogeyed the par-4 third, Ruffels, who had made par, removed a contact to clean her eye of dirt and then dropped the contact onto the grass near the fourth tee before it was eventually found.
“People who wear contacts know once you have dirt in there it’s hard to read greens and such,” Ruffels said, “and it was moving around in my eye and kind of uncomfortable.”
But Ruffels maintained her lead thanks to birdies on the par-5 fifth and seventh holes to increase her lead to 11-under before running off nine straight pars before and after the turn during which she rinsed her eye out. She twice saved pars with eight-footers at the par-4 13th and 14th holes before she birdied the 17th.
Laisne, meanwhile, began to self-destruct after closing the front-nine at three-under 34 with her fifth birdie, a 25-foot putt with at least five feet of break on the 327-yard ninth. The 24-year-old Paris native, a former standout at the University of Texas, bogeyed the 13th and 14th holes after poor tee shots, leaving it up to Huffer and the 24-year-old Smith, a former Nebraska Cornhusker, to make challenges.
“I put myself in good position today with my ball-striking,” said Smith, who like Huffer earned $16,020 for her runner-up finish and has now earned $47,269 this season. “I just didn’t make as many putts as I would have liked.”
Smith was 4 under on her round through 13 holes to reach 10 under, one stroke behind Ruffels, but she bogeyed the uphill, 424-yard, par-4 14th and then parred out for a 3-under 69 for the clubhouse lead at nine-under 207. Huffer would later match the total by sinking her four-foot uphill birdie putt at the par-5 18th that finished off a round of two-under 70.
The putter proved to be Huffer’s liability as well. With her “hometown” boosters rooting her on, her ball-striking produced birdie looks on almost every hole. But she made only three, converting birdies at the par-5 seventh, 12th and 18th holes. But she missed a five-footer for par at the par-5 fifth — a 513-yard hole around the lake where she saw her second shot hit the green and roll off the back into a hole. After chunking her next shot, Huffer chipped her fourth past the hole and missed the comebacker.
“I was burning the edges all day,” lamented Huffer, who had five birdies in each of her first two rounds and 13 total in the best of her third Top 10 finishes this season. Huffer is now knocking on the Top 10 in search of her LPGA card with earnings of $64,721.
“But this was a fun week,” Huffer said about her golf game and visiting with her Irish coaches and friends. She just couldn’t hold off the USC Trojan in Notre Dame’s backyard.
“Gabby made some great clutch putts today,” Huffer said. “She was solid.”
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