In a very severe US Open, which could be called ‘the one with the eight Asian surnames’, with overwhelming majority of players from that continent, 11 of the first 15, plus two with ancestors, all the praise fell on the little Asterisk Talley, a 15-year-old amateur golfer, at the end of the second round .
Talley, the youngest at the Lancaster Country Club (Pennsylvania), shot 71 strokes, for a total of 141, one over par, and stay five behind the leader, the Thai Wichanee Meechai, three behind the also American Andrea Lee and two behind two Major winners, Minjee Lee and Yuka Saso.
The young woman with the big smile, even more encouraged by the braces, had a busy Friday. He had two bogeys, on the 12th because he sent it into the water, in his first nine holes and then he was making pars with a single birdie on the par 3 of the 6th hole [hab�a comenzado por el 10]. “I minimized the mistakes,” commented the young woman who has just entered an institute in Chowchilla, a town in the interior of California, which has two prisons and less than 20,000 inhabitants and which is marked in history by that tragic memory of the kidnapping and murder of a children’s bus in 1976.
Talley was a prodigy from the cradle. At three years old, they told her father about the young woman’s talent and gave her a coach. At eight he was already under the orders of Mike Schy, who among others prepared the first steps of Bryson DeChambeau. “You were in front of her and you thought you were talking to a 20-year-old,” Schy said.
Daughter of a Greek mother, who is the one who gave her that singular name whose translation would be little star, Last summer he was in Spain to play the Solheim Cup junior where his driver did not go unnoticed. She is among the five hardest hitting golfers in the history of golf with shots that exceed 250 meters.
“I feel like I’m doing what I want,” he told reporters. “My goal was to make the cut in this tournament and now try to be the amateur who better do it”, a task that is difficult since Megan Schofill, the winner of last year’s US Amateur, is tied with her and Catherine Park, at one stroke. They are 16th and 12th in the amateur ranking, where Talley is still number 87. “But above all I want to enjoy this first experience.”
Once birdies
Meechai, a birdie machine – he has 11 in two days – jumped to the lead alone. The golfer who claims to feel in a “haunted” house in the residence he rented at the last minute to live this week in the tournament, he handled himself better than anyone with some devilish greens. At 31 years old and without wins on the LPGA, he sees how the experience of Minjee Lee and Saso will be a great obstacle for the weekend and the final victory. “But if there is a ghost in that house, he likes me.”
Meanwhile, Carlota Ciganda passed a cut that they did not overcome, among others, Nelly Korda; Rose Zhang, Lydia Ko and Lexi Thompson. The Navarrese is twenty-ninth after having shot 73 shots, three over par, in the second round. He made par on the second nine holes, a birdie and a bogey, after having suffered a lot at the start. She even had to overcome a double bogey on the only par 5 (hole 7) of the first 9.
