GAINESVILLE, Va. – Not long after Lauren Coughlin put up her third point for Team USA at the 19th Solheim Cup, she walked over to the rope line and signed for a group of girls from the Virginia Blue Ridge First Tee program, where Coughlin got her start.
Moments later, she posed with the women’s golf team from Randolph Macon College. Head coach Bryan Hearn has known Coughlin since she was 11 years old, back when he was an assistant pro at Greenbrier Country Club in Chesapeake.
“Just a full-of-life kid, loved the game of golf,” said Hearn of a young Coughlin. “A lot of time sitting in the pro shop eating hot dogs with me while I was working.”
Coughlin’s 3-0 start at the Solheim Cup is a celebration of a long, stubborn road. The 31-year-old played alongside Lexi Thompson – her third partner of the week – in morning foursomes on Saturday. While 29-year-old Thompson tees it up in her seventh and final Solheim Cup, Coughlin is just getting started. Their wildly different routes to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club serve as a reminder that there’s no one path to excellence.
Yet it’s a fairly straight one this week.
“You go to that light and turn left and go about 65 miles, and there’s my house,” said Coughlin of representing her country for the first time – in any event – at a home Solheim Cup. “So that’s pretty awesome.”
While Nelly Korda owned the first half of the LPGA, Coughlin emerged as the best American player heading into the Solheim Cup. A two-time winner on tour since July, it wasn’t all that long ago that Coughlin was fighting for her job. Not long before that, she was thinking about quitting the game. Her college coach at Virginia, Kim Lewellen, convinced her otherwise.
Lauren Coughlin signs autographs for girls from her First Tee chapter at the Solheim Cup. (Golfweek photo)
Lewellen, now head coach at Wake Forest, first watched Coughlin compete at a state junior championship and was impressed with her athleticism. She then watched her shoot 66 at her high school championship and took note of the way she engaged the people around her. Coughlin grew up playing in regional events on the Peggy Kirk Bell Tour. Her mom, Yvette, didn’t find out about the AJGA until she was well into high school.
Couglin walked on at Virginia where she met her husband John Pond, who played football for the Cavaliers. She never competed in any USGA events as an amateur because she took classes in the summer to keep her spring…
..
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Golfweek…