Amid Kupcho’s Late-Season Rise, A Triumphant Tale Emerges

“I’m just over the moon, so emotional. So happy for myself and my team, there is a lot more to it than just me hitting a golf ball.”@melreidgolf claimed her first LPGA Tour title with a victory at the @ShopRiteLPGA. 🏆

RECAP ⬇️ https://t.co/DFN0XGMk2N

— LPGA (@LPGA) October 4, 2020

The Colorado star gets a second-place finish, but Englishwoman Mel Reid’s comeback from personal tragedy and professional setbacks makes an impression.

By Anthony Cotton

Ever since her debut last year, it’s seemed that it was just a matter of time before Jennifer Kupcho notched a win on the LPGA Tour. After all, her rookie season included a trio of top-five finishes—and, as a possible harbinger of what was to come, in June during the tour’s novel coronavirus-mandated hiatus, Kupcho indeed got her first pro triumph, a record-setting effort in the CoBank Colorado Women’s Open.

But when she returned to the circuit, somehow things didn’t go as planned for Kupcho. In her first five starts after the layoff, the Westminster native had a 60th-place finish along with four missed cuts. Today though, that malaise seems like a distant memory; this past weekend, Kupcho finished second in the  Shoprite LPGA Classic in Galloway, N.J., this following a top-25 finish in the ANA Inspiration, one of the tour’s major championships.

Kupcho shot matching 65s on Friday and Saturday in the second and third rounds in New Jersey. She followed that up with a solid 68 over the final 18 holes, but a double bogey on No. 8 ultimately proved too much to overcome.

But while Kupcho’s confidence is likely on the rise as she heads to Pennsylvania this week for another major, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, she isn’t the only player soaring through the stratosphere. The winner at the Shoprite was Mel Reid, the Englishwoman gaining her first LPGA victory.

Even though Reid is a six-time champion on the Ladies European Tour, there’s long been a sense that success has eluded her. That’s in part because some late-tournament mishaps have cost her other LPGA victories—there’s also been some off-the-course challenges that Reid has struggled with.

But, like Kupcho, who won in Colorado (and missed making the cut in the men’s CoBank Colorado Open by a single shot) while the LPGA was shutdown during the pandemic, Reid also put her time off to good use—including hanging out with a PGA TOUR great. This story from Golfweek  was a percent look at where Reid has been—and the triumph that was indeed on the horizon.

Read the Story Here: https://bit.ly/3nprvTM

 

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Look what I just did 💥. • • • • • @howardfalco @hexagon_capital_partners @ellesseuk @gfore @miuragolf @pingtour @taylormadegolf @titleist @kbsgolfshafts @jorgeparadagolf @kennymac_lp @ryandez11 @physio4golf @aggreko_intl @cosette.chaput @wasserman

A post shared by Mel Reid (@melreidgolf) on Oct 4, 2020 at 2:52pm PDT

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