NAIRN, SCOTLAND | Maybe it had something to do with superstitions that went awry. When America’s Farah O’Keefe set out against Spain’s Paula Martin Sampedro in the afternoon instalment of the R&A Women’s Amateur final at Nairn Golf Club, she had hit off with a No. 3 ball. There wasn’t a No. 1, 2 or 4 left in the bag. Her friends were quick to rectify the situation, but a victory which would have had Americans winning back-to-back titles never happened. Martin Sampedro won, 2 and 1.
“My time will come,” said O’Keefe, a member of the U.S. Elite Amateur National Program who finished in a share of 36th place in the U.S. Women’s Open before representing her country in the Arnold Palmer Cup a week ago. “I’m not sour about what’s happened. It’s a second-place finish and it’s really stinking good!”
In a 35-hole match which was the stuff of a Solheim Cup rather than an amateur event, the finalists played one exquisite hole after another, with their approaches to the greens meeting with as much in the way of disbelieving laughter as applause.
With her sister Spaniard, Paula Francisco, serving as her caddie, the 19-year-old Martin Sampedro clung on for that little bit longer with her work and around the greens. It was impeccable. So much so that you were left with the impression that the Stanford University player is one of those rare teenagers who do not know what it is to leave things in a mess.
Never did she do anything more telling than what happened at the third in the afternoon. After driving into a bunker, she failed to escape at each of her first two attempts. At that point, O’Keefe must have thought that the hole was already hers, but how shaken she must have felt when her opponent proceeded to hit to 2 feet at her third attempt to be sure of nothing worse than a bogey. To win the hole, O’Keefe, who had also been bunkered, holed from 12 feet for par.
The match was all square after the 10th and stayed that way until Martin Sampedro went two ahead as O’Keefe failed to give her chip enough at the 13th and missed a tiddler on the 14th.
That all had been so calm in the first 18 holes was in marked contrast to what had happened in 2021 when England’s Monty Scowsill met Scotland’s Laird Shepherd in the final of the British Amateur at Nairn.
Then, Scowsill was 7 up departing the 18th green in the morning instalment, only to lose one hole after another before Shepherd won at the 38th.
With O’Keefe and Martin Sampedro level at lunch, the conversation tended to centre around a less dramatic situation. Namely, that the pair were 5-under par apiece.
All of which contributed to a sunny lunch break in which an organist came hurrying from church to play the keyboard for The Broads, a local band. Lunch over, more spectators poured in as the players were led by a piper to the first tee for their 1:30 start.
And off they sped – two great golfers and two all-round talents. Golf apart, O’Keefe, whose father played Under-21 rugby for New Zealand, used to enjoy hammering on a stand-up bass drum in her school orchestra.
Jasmine Koo, another U.S. Elite Amateur National Program player, was no less of a character than O’Keefe. Her programme over the weekdays went like this. … After leading the qualifiers with a 6-under-par tally of 138, the No. 9 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking sailed past Judy Joo in Friday’s first round before spending the afternoon playing friendly golf with Nairn Golf Club members at Nairn Dunbar.
She then lost her second-round match on Saturday morning, and, amid the disappointment, promptly teed up a ball and smashed it out to sea. That done, she started to laugh. “That’s got the anger out of my system,” she said before telling how she was struggling to shake a recent fit of the yips from her golfing mind.
If the final was amazing, so too was the semi-final in which O’Keefe defeated Canada’s Tillie Claggett, a former competitive swimmer.
When O’Keefe won at the first extra hole after having been 4 down after the 14th, it was difficult to feel too sorry for a Canadian whose massive drives, emanating as they did from someone relatively slight, had shaken everyone bar O’Keefe. The American had known Tillie since the days they played together on the junior scene in Texas.
In her morning match against America’s Anna Davis, the Canadian charmer had driven the green at the 371-yard par-4 third – something which club members thought had never been done before, other than by Calum Scott, who won the Silver Medal at last year’s Open, and his caddie. Maybe there were others, but if there were, they had probably kept quiet about it on the grounds that they would not be believed.
Did O’Keefe think that Laura Davies, in her heyday, would have been as long?
She thought about it for a moment before giving a definite “No.” In her opinion, Tillie has to be the longest women golfer of all time.
Maureen Madill, who won the Women’s Amateur at Nairn in 1979, and her longtime golfing colleague, Gillian Stewart, put it down to the combination of a swimming background, her obvious athleticism, and a strong grip.
E-MAIL LEWINE
Top: Paula Martin Sampedro
Ross Parker, R&A via Getty Images