For the U.S. Women’s Open Cinderella, it’s all about confidence

Wichanee Meechai is a surprising co-leader at the U.S. Women’s Open. She wouldn’t have believed it at the start of the week.

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Wichanee Meechai is a surprising co-leader at the U.S. Women’s Open. She wouldn’t have believed it at the start of the week.

The post For the U.S. Women’s Open Cinderella, it’s all about confidence appeared first on Golf.

LANCASTER, Pa. — Saturday could have gone very differently for Wichanee Meechai.

Such is golf. Miss a putt here, get a bad bounce there. Anyone who has played golf knows how quickly some bad luck can turn an 89 into a 94, a 79 into an 84, a 69 into a 74.

The latter is what could have happened to Meechai and perhaps it’s what was expected. She nearly admitted as such. The 31-year-old from Thailand is in the midst of her ninth LPGA season, but still might not have been a name even some of the most avid women’s golf fans were familiar with before this week. She’d never finished better than T5 on the LPGA Tour and hadn’t won anywhere in the world since 2015.

If Meechai had faded from contention Saturday, falling victim to a brutal Lancaster Country Club setup after torching it the first two days with rounds of 69 and 67 to take the lead, no one would have batted an eye.

But instead, she battled and she’ll enter the final round of the U.S. Women’s Open tied for the lead with Minjee Lee and Andrea Lee at five under.

It wasn’t pretty at times — there were many one-handed finishes and long looks for par — but by making five par putts from outside four feet, she quite literally turned 74 into 69.

Sounds a lot like a very confident player, but that’s not Wichanee Meechai, at least according to Wichanee Meechai.

“I’m the person who has no confidence at all,” she said in a very candid press conference Friday afternoon. “I never think that I’m good enough. I never think that I can win tournaments on the LPGA, but … if I can stay in my place and I just keep working hard as I can … I think it’s going to show up one day.”

Clearly, the hard work has shown up this week as Meechai and Minjee Lee are the only two golfers in the field to break 70 every day this week.

But even after posting the 69 that gave her a share of the lead going into Sunday at a major, she doubled down on her supposed lack of confidence.

“To be honest, yesterday I thought about missing the cut because I used to be in this position,” Meechai said. “Like the first day I play pretty good, and then the second day I just [shoot] like 80s and missed the cut by one. I cried a lot. I never think that I’m going to be on the leaderboard or something like that. But it’s great.”

Yet, on Saturday, a confident and resilient player plodded her way around Lancaster Country Club.

She birdied the first hole, drilling a putt from 22 feet right in the center of the cup with perfect speed, not even touching the back of the hole. After five straight pars, she hit it into the heart of the green at the par-5 7th in two and two-putted to get to six under for the tournament.

Then the round could have gotten away from her. She hit it long of the 10th green and made bogey. She did the same on the difficult par-3 12th, leaving her second shot from just off the green 10 feet short, above the hole.

As her playing partner, Andrea Lee, stroked her birdie putt, Meechai stood in the center of the green and looked on, away from the hole, away from the water guarding the green, away from the hundreds of fans who had flocked to follow the final pairing on a U.S. Open moving day.

She was alone.

In that time, she found her focus.

“I just feel like, okay, it’s going to be very downhill, and you just give the break and putt it,” Meechai said. “Just focus on it, and I made it.”

Her focus ended up being exactly what propelled her to play her last six holes in even par and keep her place atop the leaderboard.

“I think my focus on the game was pretty good today,” she said. “I hit a lot of bad shots, but, you know, like I don’t have any bad thoughts about my swing or about the result at all. I’m just staying in my zone and trying to keep going and then be patient.”

Her patience was tested all day Saturday, especially when her group was put on the clock after the 12th hole, but she responded each time she had to.

She drove it in jail on 4 and 16, but came back with magical recovery shots both times. That took confidence.

She ran off to the 13th tee when her group was put on the clock. She looked confident.

She responded to a bogey on 14 by lacing a tee shot and throwing a dart for an approach at 15 for a birdie. It was a confident stroke.

Meechai may not think she’s confident, but it’s hard to lead the U.S. Open if you’re not. Should she become the first qualifier since Birdie Kim in 2005 to win the U.S. Women’s Open, she probably won’t lack confidence much longer.

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