Kentucky’s Laney Frye, Jensen Castle gearing up for Augusta National

Last fall during the PGA Tour’s CJ Cup at Congaree Golf Club in Ridgeland, South Carolina, Laney Frye made her way over from Kentucky to meet with her swing coach, Ted Scott. It was there that Scott, a longtime PGA Tour caddie who currently works for World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, showed Frye how to create more width early in her downswing.

Frye, 20, went home to Lexington with the new move and saw that she was cruising at 105 mph on TrackMan.

“Well, shoot,” Frye said to herself.  “It takes something to get over 100.”

The Kentucky junior added more weight shift and rotation and got up to 110 mph that first day, tacking on nearly 30 extra yards off the tee. In February, when the Wildcats teed it up in the UCF Challenge, Frye was stunned to find herself hitting driver, wedge on nearly every par 4.

“It’s a different stratosphere when she hits it,” said Kentucky head coach Golda Borst, who notes that Frye can now get close to 290.

That power will come in handy for Frye when she tees it up next week in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur for the first time. At a recent practice round at Augusta National, Frye hit 7-iron into the par-5 13th for her second shot and 6-iron into the par-5 15th. She’s not certain who will caddie for her at Champions Retreat (site of the first two rounds) and Augusta National, though Scott is possibility. Scott won the Masters with Scheffler last year and twice before with Bubba Watson.

“He told me the most underrated quality people that do well there have is great distance control with their approach shots,” said Frye. “So I’ve been working on that quite a bit, little TrackMan games, dialing in my carry numbers has been huge.”

It wasn’t all that long ago that a wide-eyed Frye stood on the first tee at The Olympic Club where she was caddying for teammate Jensen Castle at the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open. Frye thinks she was more nervous than Castle that week, but seeing the best in the world up close inside the ropes gave Frye the belief she could do it, too.

“Dang it, I want to get here,” said Frye, who qualified for her first Women’s Open the next year at Pine Needles.

While Frye grew up in Lexington and a had a grandfather who played golf for the Wildcats, Castle, 22, says “never in a million years” did she think she’d end up at Kentucky….