FALL RIVER: A Fall River golf coach is coming home with a second straight medal from the World Junior girls golf championship, only this time its silver.
Jeff MacDonald coached Team Canada to gold one year ago over Korea. Well, this year it was the Koreans who won the title in a tiebreaker and left Canada as runners-up at the championship
The only other time Canada has medaled was with a Bronze, when LPGA athlete Brooke Henderson was on the team.
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At the Credit Valley Golf & Country Club in Mississauga, Ont. last Saturday. the Republic of Korea (Korea) entered the day two shots back of Team Canada and at one point trailed the defending champions by six shots during the final round.
Coming down the stretch Canada had a one-shot lead with three to play.
As the final group teed off on no.18 Canada and Korea were tied at 19-under.
Aphrodite Deng of Calgary, Alta. hit her second shot just behind the pin leaving a lengthy look at birdie while Soomin Oh from Korea hit her second shot closer than Deng but still faced a difficult putt.
Both players went on to record pars keeping the score tied at 19-under.
As per tournament tie breaking rules, the decider is the third non-counting score on the day. Sumin Hong’s score of 74 just beat Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont. by two.
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The win gives Korea’s it’s third team title, which is the most in the nine-year history of the world championship.
Team Canada 1 Coach Jeff MacDonald was proud of how his team competed all week and when one player struggled, they bounced back the next day throughout the week.
“They were amazing all week, they played great today, they battled. Team Korea is a real strong team, and we knew that going in and our girls fought really hard,” said MacDonald.
“I’m just so happy for them and so proud for them, tough way to finish at the end but still a huge battle.”
Team Canada 1 earned a podium finish for the second consecutive year and was a completely new team this year.
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MacDonald said it’s an exciting time in Canada with a lot of strong talent coming through the program.
“It just goes to show you the depth that we have within the program, two of these girls are 14 and one is 15 years old so I think we got a really bright future ahead. There are lots of girls on our NextGen program that are going to step up and do the same thing,” he said.
The United States shot a combined 2-under on Saturday to improve their total score to 9-under and took bronze medalist honours.
Team Canada 2 finished tied for 12th with Italy at 13-over.
Team Canada 2 was represented by 14-year-old Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., 15-year-old Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta. and 17-year-old Lindsay McGrath of Oakville, Ont.
- With information from Team Canada golf press release.
