AUGUSTA, Ga.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Anna Davis was asked for her earliest memory of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters.
“I don’t really have one, to be honest,” she said. “I think I’ve never really watched the Masters on TV, which is a little weird, but I think a vivid memory that I have is sitting in the clubhouse watching Tiger (Woods) two-putt on the last hole in 2019 to win the Masters.”
His other four Masters victories? She wasn’t alive for those.
The sophomore from Steele Canyon High in Spring Valley is part of ANGC lore now as well, winning the third annual Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship on Saturday over the famed 18 holes that will beam into living rooms across the world next week for the Masters.
“I’m still a little shocked,” said Davis, who just turned 16 on March 17, sharing a birthday with ANGC co-founder Bobby Jones. “I don’t think it’s processed yet that I’ve won here, but it’s pretty surreal. Literally, I’m speechless.
“I can’t even fathom what just happened.”
What happened was the lefty with ponytails spilling from a white bucket hat shot a 3-under 69 Saturday to finish as the only player in red numbers for the three-round event, the first 36 holes of which were held at a course in neighboring Evans, Ga. She had seven pars and two birdies on the back nine to get to 1-under for the tournament — which included 22 of the top 25 and 41 of the top 50 amateurs in the world — then watched on a TV monitor as leader Latanna Stone, a junior at LSU, was humbled under the Georgia pines.
When Davis, who began the week ranked No. 100, missed a birdie putt at 18 and Stone made hers at 16 for a two-stroke lead with two to play, the teenager figured that was that.
“Anything can happen,” Davis said, “but I felt like I needed to make that to have a pretty good chance at winning without having Latanna make, like, a dumb mistake. She obviously struggled a little bit towards the end. … I wasn’t expecting it, but I was more nervous watching her than playing my round out there.”
Stone, who had played almost flawless golf through 16, double-bogeyed 17 after a wayward 130-yard approach and three-putt, then bogeyed 18 after a chip shot went long and she missed the 15-footer that would have forced a playoff.
“It’s just heartbreaking, you know?” Stone said. “I kind of knew where I stood on 17, and I was just thinking par out. I just didn’t have the right club and kind of left myself with a difficult up and down. I was trying to be aggressive and just kind of lost it. I thought I could get it back on 18, but I had a lot going on in my head.”
The 16-year-old who doesn’t have a driver’s license and can’t talk to college recruiters for another two months and was golfing without the use of a range finder for the first time and has never played in front of crowds like that, it turns out, won the battle of nerves.
Her secret?
“I try to keep my emotions kind of to myself on the golf course,” Davis said. “I don’t know, I think showing emotions on the golf course, showing anger, sadness, it kind of makes the other player have an advantage when they see that, so I try to keep it to myself.”
Which of her parents did she get that from?
“I don’t think either of them, to be honest,” she said, laughing. “They’re not very composed people.”
The other secret was an air of destiny. That came on her final hole in Wednesday’s opening round at Champions Retreat, after a chip hit the flagstick and settled inches from the cup for a tap-in birdie that left her in a tie for the lead. She recovered after a shaky first nine Thursday to make the 30-player cut, then surged on the back nine at Augusta National, like the greats who walked the lush fairways before her.
Her 8-iron from 145 yards at the infamous, par-3 12th landed inches from the cup and settled a few feet away for a birdie. She then spun a wedge close on the par-5 13th for another.
“You see things like that happen,” Davis said of the flagstick fortune Wednesday, “and you are like, ‘OK, well, that’s a sign that there’s a good chance I’m going to win this week.’ ”
Davis doesn’t play high school golf for Steele Canyon – her juniors schedule is too demanding – but can be regularly found down the street at 27-hole Steele Canyon Golf Club. Last spring, she shattered the course record for the Ranch nine by shooting an 8-under 28 (three better than the previous low) with six birdies and an eagle. Five days later, she won on the junior golf circuit at the Heather Farr Classic in Mesa, Ariz.
That was followed by appearances on the junior Solheim Cup and Ryder Cup teams. The win at Augusta gets her a spot in the U.S. Women’s Open in June in North Carolina.
“My main goal,” Davis said, “has always been to be the best in the world.”
One of the first people she hugged Saturday was her twin brother, Billy. They’ve been playing together since age 5, children of a self-confessed “golf crazy” father, Bill. Her coach is another Bill — Bill Barrett, who teaches out of Stadium Golf Center in Murphy Canyon.
The whole family was wearing bucket hats, too. It started last July at Valhalla — not the East County high school, but the legendary course in Louisville, Ky., that hosted the Girls Junior PGA Championship. It was hot, and her father suggested she wear it to protect herself from the sun. Then she won.
“Ever since that’s kind of become a thing, I guess,” Davis said. “I try to wear it at least once a tournament just to please everybody, but they went to the shop (at Augusta) while I was on the driving range. I saw them come back with a bunch of bucket hats, and I was like, ‘Uh, oh. Oh, no.’”
