Siarra Stout wins Golfweek Hoosier Amateur at Indiana Pfau Course

Siarra Stout is in a season of second chances in her golf life.

“I’m going to be really old,” Stout said of an impending sixth year of college golf at Lipscomb, “but I’ve got one more year.”

In 2015, Stout became the first commit for the upstart Charlotte women’s golf program. Last fall, she transferred to Lipscomb to finish out two remaining years of eligibility left over from a redshirt season and a COVID year.

At Lipscomb, she won her first college tournament at the Rivertowne Invitational in March 2021. This week, she picked up the title at the Golfweek Hoosier Amateur, played on the teethy Pfau Course at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Stout was 10 over for 54 holes and edged Jocelyn Bruch, a redshirt sophomore at Purdue, by a shot. Things got dangerously close over the back nine at Pfau as Stout made three bogeys after the turn, but a birdie at the par-4 16^th helped lift her permanently ahead of Bruch.

“Anything can happen on this golf course but I think it just helped me kind of keep my poise as I finished off 17 and 18,” she said of that well-timed birdie.

Pfau is demanding off the tee, and Stout met that challenge by leaving herself in good positions from which to approach tricky greens. A heavy rain soaked the course after the second round, leaving the greens more receptive but the course playing longer. Still, Stout had to concentrate on placement.

And one reality remained: “Above the hole, if you were chipping, it was no bueno.”

Leading up to the Hoosier Amateur, Stout played a U.S. Women’s qualifier at Old Fort Golf Club in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, but came up four shots short of a playoff to make the field. Two years ago this week, Stout was making her U.S. Women’s Amateur debut at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Maryland. After close calls in qualifying the previous two years, she earned her spot in the field thanks to her position in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. In 2020, COVID forced the USGA to wipe out qualifying and select a field by hand.

Stout still has flashbacks to that week and is grateful for the opportunity. Lately, she’s taken a position of gratitude for many elements of her game and the experiences it has afforded her.

“I know (golf) doesn’t define me as a person and I really rest in that now for the first time,” she said.

Maybe it’s that mindset that has allowed Stout to thrive at Lipscomb. In 10 tournaments, she never finished outside the top 25 and led the…