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FUTURES TOUR: Blumenherst -- Still Chasing The Dream
Provided by the Duramed FUTURES Tour
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Maybe Amanda Blumenherst had her future all figured out in the second grade at her school’s “career day.” One of her friends dressed up as an astronaut. Another came as a tap dancer. Young Amanda arrived at school dressed as a professional golfer.
“Oh, it was bad,” laughed Blumenherst, 22, of Scottsdale, Ariz., recalling her outfit that day. “I wore long khaki shorts with a sweater draped around my shoulders.”
But it was an early statement of her intent, nonetheless. For the recent Duke University graduate whose resume includes 12 collegiate wins ? along with a win at the 2008 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship, membership on two U.S. Curtis Cup teams and two U.S. Women’s World Amateur teams, designation as a three-time NCAA Player of the Year, a two-time Dinah Shore Trophy Award winner, an unprecedented three-time Nancy Lopez Award winner and a member of two NCAA Division I Championship teams -- that little girl’s dream turned into a highly motivated young woman’s reality.
Blumenherst will make her professional debut next week at the Michelob ULTRA Duramed FUTURES Players Championship in Decatur, Ill. Now in its 25th year, it is the same Duramed FUTURES Tour tournament where the LPGA’s top-ranked LORENA OCHOA also kicked off her pro career with a win.
“Hopefully, history will repeat itself,” said Blumenherst. “I was going to make my pro debut at the Wegmans LPGA tournament, but the Michelob ULTRA Duramed tournament is a great event and I felt like this would be a good place to start my career and hit the ground running.”
Truthfully, she hit the ground running long ago, and her drive to excel went beyond the golf course. Blumenherst graduated magna cum laude from Duke last month with a degree in history and minors in English and Theatre Studies. She completed her college tenure with a grade point average of 3.807, in spite of a demanding travel schedule on a varsity team.
“Amanda is successful at what she does because she is passionate,” said Dan Brooks, Duke’s head women’s golf coach. “It’s the only way she operates. She loves to be in contention. She thrives there.”
The Duke All-American thrived in the collegiate setting and was the nucleus of an always-competitive Blue Devil team for her four seasons there. Even this year, when Duke had health and injury challenges among players and coaches, as well as an unexpected early departure of a key team member, Blumenherst and senior teammate JENNIE LEE of Henderson, Nev., kept fighting and leading the team. Blumenherst was wrestling with her own “swing issues” during her senior season, but at this year’s NCAA Championship, she still managed to tie for fourth in her last event as a college player.
“Amanda and Jennie stepped up at nationals this year and gave inspirational talks to the team prior to our last two rounds ... mostly about accepting your mistakes and being patient,” added Coach Brooks. “Honestly, the strongest sentiment I’ve heard from Amanda is how sad she is that her college golf has come to an end. It really hurt her to walk off that final green at nationals. She was crying hard.”
Blumenherst and her coach used to laugh at media speculation that she would leave school early to turn pro when, in fact, the Arizona player had become firmly entrenched in the community of Durham, N.C., where Duke is located. While she was winning tournaments and honors and etching her name alongside so many other great collegians who passed through Duke’s doors, she also selflessly worked with Habitat For Humanity in Durham and served as the lead organizer of a community service program called “Project Share,” in which Duke student-athletes “adopted” families and provided them with gifts for the Christmas holiday. The Duke golfer headed up the program for four years.
“My parents taught me about balancing my whole life and also about giving something back,” said Blumenherst. “It’s amazing how being balanced helped me perform well and taught me how to manage my time.”
Brooks likes to say, “You could set your watch on Amanda’s daily schedule.” Part of her success at Duke came from establishing a routine that was timed right down to when she would make personal calls on her cell phone. Once, a worker at Duke Golf Club marveled to Brooks that Blumenherst’s success was surprising, considering that every time the worker saw her, “she was on her cell phone.” What the woman didn’t know was that Blumenherst made all of her phone calls for the day during her walk past the club on her way to practice. That walk was the time she had allotted for personal calls. That’s where the calls fit in her finely tuned daily schedule.
Just as it is for most new pros transitioning from college, Blumenherst likely will find herself missing the tight structure that balancing academics and college golf demands. But she believes that the path she took to next week’s pro debut has been complete, starting with American Junior Golf Association tournaments (where she won 14 AJGA events), U.S. Golf Association events (where she made cuts at three U.S. Women’s Open Championships, finishing 10th at the 2006 Open), and four years of college golf (in which her team won two of four NCAA Championships while she was there).
Last week, Blumenherst put a few more items in place to prepare for her first swings as a pro. She signed with IMG for worldwide management and marketing representation. She tapped her uncle Bill Blumenherst, who looped for her at last year’s U.S. Women’s Open and U.S. Women’s Amateur, to caddie for her this season. And in addition to joining the Duramed FUTURES Tour, based on her amateur/collegiate ranking, she also announced one of the six LPGA exemptions she hopes to get this year. She will play her first LPGA tournament as a pro at the Wegmans LPGA, June 2 5-28.
This season on the Duramed FUTURES Tour, Blumenherst will play in Decatur, as well as The Duramed Championship in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason, Ohio. She hopes to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open (July 9-12), losing her exemption into the Open as the reigning U.S. Women’s Amateur champion when she turned pro. The rest of the 2009 season depends on balancing opportunities both on the LPGA and Duramed FUTURES Tour. And, should she win on the developmental tour and shoot up the money list in contention for one of the 2010 LPGA Tour cards awarded to the top 10 Duramed FUTURES Tour money winners, Blumenherst admitted she might rethink her 2009 tournament schedule.
“My biggest goal is to be fully exempt for the LPGA next year and to not have to go to LPGA Q-School,” she said. “I know this [Duramed FUTURES Tour] is an excellent tour and it’s a great way to prepare for the LPGA. I have a lot of friends and coaches who have come through here and I know it will help my confidence level to look around and see players that I know and that I’ve played a lot of golf with.”
There’s just one more thing that has stuck in Blumenherst’s brain ? a fact that her father shared while they were watching an LPGA telecast in which former Duke Blue Devil Brittany Lang was in contention to win.
“My dad told me that a Duke player has never won on the LPGA Tour,” said Blumenherst, followed by a pause of a young woman dreaming big again. “I would love to change that.”
