Annabelle Pancake described her golf last week as “pretty boring.” Her version of the mundane happened to translate to just three bogeys in 54 holes and a four-shot victory on Friday at the fourth Sea Island Women’s Amateur.
Pancake, a recent Clemson graduate from Zionsville, Indiana, followed a first-round 2-under 68 with a 66 to take a three-shot lead over the University of Georgia’s Savannah De Bock heading into the final day of competition on Sea Island’s Seaside Course. Within the first few minutes of her second round, Pancake saw her lead shrink to two as Nicole Gal, a rising junior at Ole Miss playing in the group ahead, birdied two of her first three holes.
That was as close as any competitor got to Pancake. Gal quickly fell away, and no one else made a run on a sunny day at Sea Island. With an even-par 70 to finish at 6-under 204 for the three days, Pancake got the job done. The University of Kentucky’s Laney Frye, now a four-time runner-up in the Sea Island Women’s Amateur, was the closest competitor. She shot 70 to end the week at 2-under 208.
The victory capped a magnificent run of golf for Pancake, who was profiled earlier this spring in GGPWomen.
In the past few weeks, she finished 10th at the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, second at the NCAA Bryan Regional, and seventh in the individual stroke-play portion of the NCAA Women’s Golf Championship as Clemson qualified for the eight-team match play for the first time. Although the Tigers fell in the quarterfinals to Southern Cal, Pancake won her match, 4 and 3.
“I kind of just came in with no expectations, knowing that I had just played pretty well for a couple weeks in a row, just trusting that if I keep doing the same things that it’ll translate to this week,” said Pancake, who is No. 57 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. “And luckily, it did.”
Pancake said that her week was extra special because she had her fiancé, Nathan, caddying for her less than a week after they got engaged. Their player-caddie partnership at Sea Island happened on a whim, as she did not commit to the event until a week before they left for Georgia.
Her victory is magnified in the golf world because she’s the first winner of a Women’s Elite Amateur Golf Series event, a new effort to bring the top amateurs and tournaments together to foster high-level competition in a summer-long sprint for the Women’s Elite Amateur Cup.
Pancake, though, may not stay an amateur for long, as she’s contemplating turning professional sometime before the summer amateur season is finished. She holds sponsor exemptions into two tournaments on the LPGA’s developmental Epson Tour, and expects to keep competing, whether it be as an amateur or professional, in preparation for the marathon that is the LPGA Tour Q-Series this fall.
For now, though, Pancake is going to take a breather after an exhilarating few months.
“The word that I would give it is grateful,” she said. “I just had a fun week with family and friends, but I’m definitely ready to rest and take a couple of days off.”
RESULTS
Jake Patterson