It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Not even close.
Look at the world rankings, and the experience, and the momentum, and seedings coming into the week, and the American team of Nelly Korda, Lilia Vu, Lexi Thompson and Danielle Kang certainly was favored to capture the Hanwha LifePlus International Crown, an event making a return to the calendar after a five-year hiatus. They’re all major winners after all, and Korda is the No. 1 player in the world.
If not the Yanks, then the team from South Korea certainly would have been the one to watch. After all, the Koreans had two players in the top-10 in the Rolex Rankings, three in the top 12, and all four in the top 25.
The U.S. looked even better on paper, with two players ranked in the top 4 in the world, three in the top 10, and all four in the top 16. No other squad was close. Anyone who puts odds on such things had the Americans and Koreans slated to face off in the finals before the first shots were struck.
Of course, you know that didn’t happen. It’s team match play. The favorites are almost always like Goliath in the Valley of Elah, ripe for the slaying.
Korea did not win a single match in the first two days of this competition. As a team, the Koreans were mathematically eliminated before noon on Saturday.
The Americans fared a little better, but they never looked like winners. Having cobbled together three points on Thursday and Friday, the U.S. needed to win or tie one of the two matches against Sweden on Saturday to finish second in their pool and advance to the Sunday morning semifinals. If they lost both matches and China beat a beleaguered England team, then China and the U.S. would go to a sudden-death playoff for the final spot.
Before going any further, here’s a quick lesson on the International Crown. Eight countries were chosen based on their combined rankings. Then, at a later date, the four best players from those countries qualified for the teams. The eight teams were divided into two pools, with four teams in each. Once the 32 players arrived at TPC Harding Park – after a gorgeous welcoming banquet at San Francisco City Hall – they played three days of round-robin four-ball matches in their pool. After that, two teams from each pool advanced to the semifinals on Sunday morning – two singles matches and one foursomes match – followed on Sunday afternoon by the finals, played the same way as the semis.
"We do everything together; and we've just come together really well. And it's paying off, as you can see on the course."
Sarah Kemp
It was easier to watch than to explain, and, unlike past contests where the four final teams played a series of singles matches on Sunday, this year’s leaderboard was a breeze to follow.
And it was fun, because the underdogs dominated again. Of the eight teams, Thailand entered as the sixth seed, and Australia entered as the seventh. So, of course they met in the finals. Thailand went undefeated in pool play and lost only one match all week. The Thais knocked out the Americans in the semis and then beat the stew out of Australia on Sunday afternoon.
The Aussies, a team no one thought would advance, lost only to Thailand – first in the last day of pool play and then in the finals. They skunked Korea, beat Japan and upset Sweden in the semifinals with only one player, Minjee Lee, ranked in the top 10 in the world.
Hannah Green, the second-highest-rated player, came in at No. 14 in the Rolex Rankings, below three of four players on the Korean team and three of the four Americans.
The other two Australians, Steph Kyriacou and Sarah Kemp, ranked 118th and 161st respectively.
So, how did this happen? Or more importantly, why does it happen so frequently in team golf? Every sporting event has upsets – March Madness, anyone? – but how, in golf, do teams that are consistently outgunned step up so often that no one is shocked when it happens?
The answer, articulate and unassailable, came from the 161st-ranked player in the world.
“I'm not really surprised,” Australian Kemp said right before the finals. “Not in a cocky way, just because of the way we are around each other and the team that we've built from the beginning. We've had lunch together; we've had breakfast together every day; we've had dinner together; we do everything together; and we've just come together really well. And it's paying off, as you can see on the course.
“In that aspect, I'm not surprised that we're all playing so well.”
Buy in. Teamwork. Parking your ego and subjugating yourself to something bigger, a cause that means more than an individual trophy or a one-week paycheck. That’s the difference.
In a crucial semifinal match that wound up putting Thailand in the finals, Ariya Jutanugarn made a 20-foot birdie putt on the 17th to give her team the lead. The loudest and most sustained roar came from just off the green. It was Patty Tavatanakit, who had lost to Lilia Vu moments earlier (the Thai’s only match loss of the week). Rather than hang her head and disappear into the clubhouse, Tavatanakit ran back to cheer on her teammates.
That is the attitude on which upsets are built.
E-MAIL STEVE
Top: Australia's Hannah Green can only wonder what went wrong during her 4-and-3 loss to Thailand's Patty Tavatanakit in the finals of the Hanwha LifePlus International Crown.
Orlando Ramirez, Getty Images