Some interesting quotes about the course from the GB&I team:
In June, a week after the team was selected, O’Sullivan took her crew to Kingsbarns in Scotland (near the Old Course at St. Andrews) for four days to emulate Pacific Dunes’ hilly and blustery conditions. As well-intentioned as that practice time was, it still wasn’t Pacific Dunes, which O’Sullivan adores because “all 18 holes offer an individual challenge.”
At no time this week has the GB&I squad played 36 holes on any given day. That was by design, O’Sullivan
said, for a couple of reasons: she believes that anytime an amazing golf course is played for the first time, she wants the initial thoughts to be burned into memory, and secondly, she didn’t want to fatigue anyone.
Semple Thompson has advocated the same approach, limiting the number of practice rounds this week.
Eighteen-year-old Breanne Loucks of Wales and Tricia Mangan, 32, of Ireland, both are excited to be appearing in their first Curtis Cup for the GB&I team. It will be Loucks’ first time playing in the United States. Both echoed the same thoughts.
“On the photos it looked much different … it looks much trickier,” said Loucks, the 2005 North Wales champion. “And it looks much tighter. But when we came out here, it’s actually much prettier that what I expected, personally.”
Said Mangan: “Like anything, you don’t believe anything until you see it. But, yeah, it’s a fantastic course and definitely exceeded my expectations. … I played a lot of links golf and this is as tough as I’ve played.”
It also could play to their advantage that Pacific Dunes is an imaginative shot-maker’s dream, not to mention that it resembles the true links layouts the players see in Ireland and Scotland. Semple Thompson didn’t necessarily disagree, making a modest attempt to remain coy in an event that offers up more cat-and-mouse concealments than CIA operatives.
“I think the venue is more of an equalizer,” said Semple Thompson. “And certainly if the weather were really severe, that could be an equalizer.
“I think that it would be considered an odd venue for us to have an advantage. And I don’t think we have an advantage. But I think that the strength of the team is such that we’re going to play well enough to win.”
If the Americans are to win a fifth straight match, they’ll have to manage their games conservatively. There’s little argument that strong breezes off the Pacific Ocean will wreak havoc with some shots. The beauty of Pacific Dunes is that it isn’t target golf; extra rolls are expected, and so are the unfortunate hops that come with firm and fast fairways. Semple Thompson has made it clear that her players should “expect bad bounces.”