Runaway city champion
O’Brien takes women’s title with record day
FORT WAYNE – If anything told the tale of how Kristi O’Brien turned the Brookwood Golf Club into her own personal arcade course, complete with clown’s mouth and windmill, it was young Brett Reuille.
The 13-year-old with the final threesome not only carried the small leader board around the course, but she kept the thing updated for spectators, who substantially grew in number as the buzz of O’Brien’s record-setting round also reached the other players at the Women’s City Golf Tournament.
It was a few steps off the 17th green when, after O’Brien dropped her third consecutive birdie putt to go 13 under for the tourney, Reuille rummaged through his sign’s storage compartment and stuck a red 13 onto the Velcro next to O’Brien’s name.
“Thirteen is the highest (number) I have,” Reuille said with a shrug of consolation.
The boy in the orange shirt didn’t think he would need a 14. But who did?
“I knew I wanted to make a strong round, but I didn’t know it would be that strong,” said O’Brien, who won the title with a women’s course-record 64 Monday.
With nine birdies and no bogeys, the 20-year-old who will be a junior at IUPUI turned a match tied after 36 holes into a mismatch.
Not even Brookwood itself could keep up with O’Brien, who birdied the final four holes to complete the tournament at 14 under, which is another record.
In a flash of ingenuity, a 1 and a 4 were stuck next to each other as the final tote board was raised to illustrate O’Brien’s 14-under 205 total.
But rewind four hours from that moment. This is how history begins.
After playing Saturday and Sunday, O’Brien and 19-year-old Megan Kiley were tied for the lead at 5 under, with Amber Sieber, the third member of the final group, not far back at even par.
None of the three hit the fairway on their first drive, and the same on the second hole.
It was on the 237-yard, par-4 No. 2 hole where O’Brien’s second shot from beneath a pine tree scooted into a patch of thick grass about a foot behind the green.
When they arrived over the ball, she and her boyfriend-slash-caddie, Ben Moster, studied the predicament.
“I said, ‘I know you’ve been working on your short game a lot, so right now you’ve got to trust you can do the shot,’ ” Moster said.
And with a flip through the thick grass, a 15-foot roll across the short stuff and a plunk into the bottom of the cup, O’Brien took the lead in the Women’s City tournament and never let it go.
“That was crazy,” said Kiley, who finished with a 1-over 74 Monday and a 4-under 215 for the tournament. “We knew it was going to be her day.”
“It calmed everything,” O’Brien said. “I stopped being nervous. I played it exactly where I wanted it to go.
“You always imagine a chip going in in your mind when you’re chipping them, but they never do. But I played that just right and it calmed everything and it set the mood for the day.”
It was a day unlike any other for O’Brien, who, along with Kiley, birdied No. 3.
Kiley caught O’Brien with a birdie on the 7th, which put both players 7 under. Then O’Brien took over with birdies at Nos. 8 and 9 to finish the front side with a 4-under 32.
On the back, it was a runaway.
With Kiley struggling with the putter and O’Brien sticking everything as though it were, well, young Brett Reuille’s Velcro, the chasm widened with nearly every hole. After No. 11 O’Brien’s lead was three; after No. 12, it was four; after O’Brien’s birdie and Kiley’s three-putt bogey on 13, the lead was six. It was seven after 14, and nine through 15 after a Kiley bogey and a 30-foot birdie putt from O’Brien.
“I could tell she was focused because a big, ol’ jet went across right when she was putting, and she didn’t even notice it,” said Sieber, who previously held the women’s record at Brookwood with a 66.
“It was awesome.”
What was awesome was not just O’Brien’s final round Monday, but her completion of the 10 holes from the previous day.
After a bogey-4 on No. 8 late Sunday morning, O’Brien had four birdies and six pars. Mix that in with the 64 Monday, and she was 13 under through her final 28 holes.
“She made everything,” Kiley said. “Whether I made those putts out there and shot 68 wouldn’t have mattered.”
Matt Kuchar became No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings after the first playoff event, and no one was quibbling about that. After a solid year, he beat one of the strongest fields of the year at The Barclays.