Late bogeys bury Shepley

July 26, 2010

Photo by Max Bittle / For the Monitor
Jessica Shepley, center, high fives Ryann O'Toole after sinking a putt during the final round of The International at Concord at Beaver Meadow Golf Course in Concord on Sunday, July 25, 2010.

She was the first to admit that she wasn't perfect. There were some wayward drives, some mishit irons and a few misreads on the green. However, through the first 42 holes of The International at Concord, Jessica Shepley had yet to card anything worse than a par.

Then came hole 43, the par-4 seventh, measuring at just over 375 yards yesterday.

Shepley stood on the tee box fresh off her sixth straight par, keeping her at 7 under for the tournament and within one shot of the lead. But Shepley pushed her drive into the right rough and had to hit her second shot over a set of hanging limbs. While she succeeded in that venture, she was still left with a short pitch to a back-left pin placement. Her third shot stopped six feet from the hole, but Shepley ran her par putt past the left edge, and she tapped in for her first bogey of the tournament.

She birdied the two subsequent holes, but bogeyed two more holes on the back nine to finish at even par for the day and four shots behind Jenny Shin for the championship.

"It's definitely frustrating, but you can't look at just those three bogeys as the difference," said the 27-year-old Shepley, who finished in a tie for fifth and is still searching for her first victory on the Futures Tour. "I've won on the Canadian Tour; I think it's part of the process and winning out here is step along the way.

"The problem is that I really haven't been in contention a whole lot, so it's obviously something I need to learn how to do, get lower on Sunday. It's important to win, but at the same time people take all different paths to get to the end result, but it would definitely be nice to know that I have what it takes to win out here."

Joh so close
Coming off a win last week in Bloomfield, Conn., Tiffany Joh was confident with her game, but not brash enough to assume that it would be easy to repeat this week at Beaver Meadow. And following rounds of 72 and 69 - putting her five shots back heading into yesterday's final round - any ideas of a repeat were all but extinguished.

Then she birdied one. Then two. Then five. By the time she made the turn, Joh was 4 under, and while thoughts of another win were still firmly on the back burner, they weren't totally without merit.

"I figured it was going to require something really extraordinary," Joh said.

Indeed. Joh made three more birdies on the back nine to finish 7 under for the day and 10 under for the tournament. The round of 65 was the lowest at Beaver Meadow all weekend.

"I wasn't too aggressive, but I was pretty loose," Joh said. "I wasn't even looking at the leaderboard because I didn't think I would be anywhere near it."

Joh held the lead for much of the afternoon before Jenny Shin birdied two of the final three holes to steal the tournament away from Joh.

"It's more encouraging because I kind of felt like last week was maybe a fluke," said Joh, whose second-place finish and $11,000 check moves her from 10th to fifth on the money list. "Having a good finish back-to-back is really nice."

Payday
Jenny Shin was the lone player to start the day outside the top 10 on the money list and end it comfortably inside. Shin took home $15,400 and now ranks seventh overall. Here's a look at yesterday's top 10 and their payouts:

Joh ($11,000), Sophia Sheridan ($7,838) and Hannah Jun ($5,638) finished second, third and fourth, respectively. Shepley, Jodi Ewart, Ashley Prange and Erica Moston finished in a tie for fifth and won $3,383 apiece, while Juli Erekson, Cindy LaCrosse, Nontaya Srisawang, Lee Ann Walker, Dewi Claire Schreefel and Jessi Gebhardt won $1,765 apiece after finishing in a tie for ninth.

Christine Song ($59,100) remains atop the money list, followed by LaCrosse ($56,307), Gerina Mendoza ($50,460), Angela Oh ($42,112), Joh ($36,985), Pornanong Phatlum ($36,333), Shin ($34,421), Esther Choe ($33,990), Ryann O'Toole ($33,601) and Jane Rah ($31,138).

Shot of the day
After pulling her drive left of the fairway, Shepley punched her second shot back through the fairway and under a cluster of trees some 200-plus yards from the 16th green.
"My caddie (Futures Tour player Ryann O'Toole) asked if I could hit a fade with my hybrid," recalled Shepley. "I said, 'why the heck not?' "

Just getting a ball to hold the 16th green is a feat in itself, but Shepley did more than that. The Oakville, Ontario, native put a perfect move on the 19-degree hybrid and stuck the shot to five feet, drawing a raucous cheer from the throng gathered around the green.

"No chance," said Shepley, when asked if there was any way she'd miss the ensuing birdie putt. "That was probably the best shot I've ever hit."

By Gavin Faretra / Monitor staff
(Gavin Faretra can be reached at gfaretra@cmonitor.com.)