Not having the opportunity to play at Augusta National last spring helped Erica Shepherd enjoy the experience all that much more this past weekend.
Playing well helps, too.
The Center Grove graduate shot a final-round 74 at the home of the Masters on Saturday, finishing the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in a tie for 16th at 8 over par.
Shepherd, now a sophomore at Duke, tied for 23rd in the inaugural event back in 2019. The tournament was canceled last year due to the pandemic.
"I don’t know if it was because there was a year’s difference, but I forgot how good it was," Shepherd said. "To make the cut and finish top 16 out of the best amateurs in the world, I was pretty happy with that."
Shepherd canceled out a bogey on the fifth hole with a birdie on the par-5 eighth to make the turn at even par on Saturday, but she dropped a shot on the 11th and another on the 15th. After a birdie on 17, she just missed a par putt on the final hole.
Making it to the final round — which only 30 of the 82 players in the field got to do — wasn’t always a sure thing for Shepherd, who was flirting with the cut line after turning in a 77 during Thursday’s second round at Champions Retreat — a course that Shepherd called highly challenging and underrated even before some heavy winds were factored in.
"It’s the longest course I’ve played in competition, including LPGA events," Shepherd said. "So there’s that and then the layout is super hard, and there’s elevation changes. There’s dormant Bermuda rough that’s pretty tough, and then the greens. They really prepare us for Augusta National because of how fast they are and how much they break."
Fortunately, the other players were having just as tough of a time scoring well, so even though she came in with a higher number than she was expecting and "really wasn’t able to breathe until the final group came in," Shepherd ended the day on the safe side of the cut.
She’s just one of nine players who made the top 30 in both years of the event, and earned another rare opportunity to play a competitive round at Augusta National.
The experience of playing two rounds at the course in 2019, Shepherd said, allowed her to enjoy the moment a little bit more this time.
"I was able to kind of soak it in more during the practice round," she said, "especially just because I didn’t have to rush to try and get all of the course knowledge possible, because I had some from two years ago."
The solid showing at Augusta continued what has been a pretty good spring for Shepherd. She earned her first individual college tournament victory five weeks ago at the Gamecock Intercollegiate in South Carolina, and the Blue Devils are second in the Golfstat team rankings heading into the Cavalier Match Play event at Virginia on Tuesday.
Shepherd, who admitted to feeling a good deal of homesickness during her freshman year, says she’s much more comfortable at Duke now.
"Our team this year is really having a good time together," she said. "We have some freshmen who’ve really added some good things to the team, and so each time we travel it’s just a good time, and then good golf has come along with that.
"I’ve accepted the fact that Durham is kind of my second home. It’s grown on me, so I’m a lot more settled here."
