Victoria Allred has won many golf tournaments in her short career, and her biggest win came last week at the 45th Twin States Junior Championship at the Governors Club in Chapel Hill.
Allred, a rising sophomore at Reagan, closed the tournament in style, making three birdies in a row to grab the lead for good on the back nine. She shot a 2-under 70 in the final round to win her first major Carolinas Golf Association title.
As she gazed at the trophy afterward, she couldn’t help but notice some of the names on it. It’s an impressive list that includes LPGA Hall of Famer Beth Daniel and current LPGA player Marcy Newton.
Allred, 15, was the youngest player among the top 10 in the tournament, also the North Carolina and South Carolina stroke-play championship.
“No, it hasn’t sunk in yet,” Allred said last week when asked about winning such a significant tournament.
Allred has won about 30 tournaments since she started playing in them as a 6-year-old. She had a plastic club in her hands when she was 2, and she never stopped swinging.
Things came together for her in the final round at Governors Club when she hit her first green in regulation on No.5. After that, she said, the final round became easy. At one point, she had four one-putts in a row.
“I think what this does for me is it helps me realize what my dad and my coaches have been telling me about how good I can play,” said Allred, who was 1 over for the 36 holes. “I haven’t felt that way in a while, so it was nice to win something like this.”
Jay Allred, the publisher of Triad Golf Today, Reagan’s girls’ golf coach and Victoria’s father, said that his daughter has done a much better job of managing her game this summer. Working with David Orr, who has an aim-point green reading program, has helped her read greens better.
“She knows where the ball is going because she reads the breaks a lot better,” Jay Allred said.
Allred said that his daughter is an aggressive player and tends to fire at every pin she sees, but her course management has helped her stay out of trouble.
“She’s playing more toward the center of greens, and that makes a difference,” he said.
Victoria Allred, ranked 36th in the country in her high-school graduating class by juniorgolfscoreboard.com, also did well enough in a tournament earlier this summer to become fully exempt on the American Junior Golf Association Tour.
She said that her latest victory will only help her confidence even more. She said she dedicated it to her grandfather, who died last September.
“His name was William Allred, but we called him Paw-Paw,” Allred said. “I was very close to him, and it's been difficult to not have him around. This win was for him.”
Reifers locks up
2012 PGA Tour card
Kyle Reifers, a former All-American at Wake Forest and 2006 graduate, has done enough on the Nationwide Tour this season to secure his PGA Tour card for 2012.
He tied for second two weeks ago at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Invitational in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. He finished behind winner Harris English, an amateur who couldn’t take the first-place check. That gave Reifers a payday of $144,000.
“It’s huge,” Reifers, 27, said of playing on the PGA Tour in 2012. “I really just got back to playing golf and not being so technical. I’m not worrying about all the other stuff and taking the good with the bad. I know that sounds simple, but it’s really helped.”
Reifers played on the PGA Tour in 2007, making nine cuts in 27 tournaments and finishing out of the top 125 on the money list. He has played on the Nationwide Tour the past four years.
Reifers will join fellow Deacons Webb Simpson and Bill Haas on the PGA Tour.
“Webb called me and wanted to know how much I won in Columbus,” Reifers said. “And I told him he’s been averaging about $144,000, so he’s been killing it out there. But it will be fun to be out there with Webb and Bill and have another Deacon on tour.”
Around the green
Rising sophomore Olafia Kristinsdottir of Wake Forest won the Icelandic Women’s Championship by a whopping nine shots, shooting rounds of 72-70-74-80.
Zach Brown of Bermuda Run shot 81-82-87 to place second in the 10 and under division of the AAU National Championship at Ballantyne Resort last week. He finished six shots behind winner Kenan Poole of Raleigh. Also, Mariano Leyva of Lewisville shot 80-84-87 to finish third in the 12 and under girls division.
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