Delaney Shah
The conclusion of the WAPT events was in Beaumont, Texas with the WAPT Tour Championship. The weather was hot and humid, but luckily I had my dad on the bag for the week. This event was the toughest field of the year, and the largest purse of the season with $75,000. This event was going to be a good test of competition leading up to Q-School, competing with the best girls on tour.
The week started off with a hitch off the course. My check engine light came on while I was going down to Houston to pick my dad up from the airport. After arriving safely in Beaumont, my dad took it to get looked at, where long story short I needed to get a few items replaced costing almost $1,500. I can’t complain as this is the first real issue after I have put on almost 115,000 miles in 6 years.
After a great pro-am on Tuesday, I was feeling good about this last event. The course was in great condition with the greens rolling super fast and pure. I teed off Wednesday morning as the first tee time, and got off to shaky start. With a bogey on 2 and a double on three from a poor tee shot, I bounced back with three birdies and one more bogey making the turn at 1-over. The back was followed up with more bogeys on holes 13, 15, and 18, and a bride on 14 to shoot a round of 3-over 75, placing me at T28/82.
With a few hiccups the first round, I put a good round together the second day, starting the back nine off with two birdies and two bogeys making the turn at even par before making 8 pars and one birdie coming down the stretch to shoot 1-under 71 and putting me inside the cut line.
Really happy that I made the final event's cut, I went out with the mentality that I now had nothing to lose and that I didn't have to play conservatively. I started the third round with three straight pars before a birdie on the fourth, a bogey on the sixth from a three-putt, and then a bounce back with birdies on 7 and 8. Making the turn at 2-under, I was feeling good, but then a storm rolled in and we had a lightning delay while we were on hole 10. After waiting around for a few hours, we went back out and continued play, where I birdied 11, 15, and 16. I made two really good par saves from 8 feet on holes 17 and 18 to shoot my best round as a professional, 5-under 67. This round gave me a lot of confidence in my ability to finish a good round without getting nervous and falling apart.
Coming off that great round, I headed into the last day with the same mentality that I had nothing to lose, so I wanted to try and hit the shots I was less comfortable with under pressure to gain confidence in them. The round started slow with two bogeys in the first 8 holes before making a birdie on the ninth to shoot 1-over on the front nine. Again on hole 10, a storm came through so we had to go inside and wait for 45 minutes. After going back out I made a bogey on 10 and 13 before making a long sloping putt for birdie on 15. While on 16 another lightning strike was detected close by so we had to go inside again for about an hour and a half. Going back out I made three pars to finish out my final round of 2-over 74 and placing me in a tie for 1th for the WAPT Tour Championship. Having to start and stop your round is quite difficult, so I was happy with how I handled that both mentally and physically.
Looking back on the week, I am really happy with how my game held up under the pressure. I think the best mental boost for me is that I felt very comfortable and felt like I was just “playing” golf. I had my best finish and made the largest paycheck to date, and in the biggest toughest tournament I have played since turning pro. This is a great boost going into Q-School which is my next event. I will be leaving for Palm Springs on August 13, and the event is August 18-21. I will post a link to live scoring when it gets closer to the event. As always thank you for following along.