Team USA Wins the UL Crown

By: Jonathan Jones 07/27/2016

With a weekend of bizarre weather, Team USA weathered the storm to notch a championship win in the LPGA Second UL International Crown at Merit Club in Gurnee.

The U.S. team consisting of Stacy Lewis, Gerina Piller, Cristie Kerr and Lexi Thompson competed in the four-day tournament and went 3-1-0 in Singles play on Sunday.

This showing enabled them to post a grand total of 13 points for first place, edging out Team Korea by a single point. England and Chinese Taipei followed suit with 11 points a piece.

Lewis bested Japan’s Mika Miyazato 3&2, Piller topped Chinese Taipei’s Yani Tseng posting a 4&3 final and Kerr tallied a 3&2 victory over England’s Mel Reid. Thompson faltered to Korea’s So Yeon Ryu 2&1.

Kerr, who has a collection of eight Solheim Cup and the all-time U.S. points leaders, grabbed the final points needed to ensure the victory of Team USA.

Team USA actually had dropped the first two opening round four-ball matches on Thursday, but that didn’t deter the newly-crowned champs from keeping their eye on the prize.

“I had a feeling (Saturday) night if we all played really well and things fell into place, that my match could be huge,” Kerr said in her press conference. “But I just kind of got oblivious to all of that today because it’s just so hard to figure out who’s making points, who’s winning, who’s losing and I just tried to take care of my match. I didn’t know that it had come down to me winning that match that we had won until Stacy told me.”

[caption id="attachment_6005" align="alignright" width="267"] Piller and Kerr hugging after win[/caption]

“We stuck to our game plan,” said Lewis in a press conference, who is also the no. 8 player in the world. “We knew not to change our pairings. We knew that we were playing good golf and when those pairings came out (Sunday) morning, I liked the way we were positioned, and Gerina and I went out there getting points early was huge, and we got Kerr through, so we got a crown.”

Piller, Lewis and Thompson will be playing for Team USA in the Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Thompson is ranked no. 4 in the world while Piller is ranked no. 15. Kerr is no. 21, but will not be apart of the team in Rio.

The UL Crown occurs every two years, and in 2018 the tournament heads to Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in Songdo International Business District, Incheon, Korean. Congrats to Team USA and good luck to them in Rio!

For more information about golf courses in Lake County, continue here.

[caption id="attachment_5976" align="aligncenter" width="570"] Merit Club in Gurnee, IL[/caption]