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UGA Experience helps Utah Tech golfer in the Copper Rock Championship

Two months later, Samantha Phelan delivered a classic round of Modified Stableford golf. 

The trouble with her timing was that unlike the Utah Golf Association’s Winterchamps event, the LPGA Epson Tour’s Copper Rock Championship uses traditional scoring. Even if her four birdies did not help her as much Thursday as they would have in March, though, the Utah Tech University golfer enjoyed making them. 

“Yeah, the birdies were dropping; took advantage of those opportunities, for sure,” Phelan said after a 1-over-par 73 that was easily the best score of the four Utah collegians in the field, playing via sponsor invitations.

Although she will face much more difficult conditions in the afternoon wind Friday, Phelan will have a chance to make the 36-hole cut that likely will come at 1 over. Utah Valley’s Chloe Jang (78), Utah Tech’s Mia Cesarek (79) and Southern Utah’s Siriporn Luangnam (80) also will play in the afternoon wave at Copper Rock Golf Course in Hurricane. 

Phelan is tied for low amateur honors with Toa Yokoyama, a former UNLV golfer. Yokoyama helped UNLV qualify for this week’s NCAA Women’s Golf Championships, but then chose to start using the Epson Tour access she gained via last fall’s LPGA Qualifying Series. 

Hailee Cooper played in the morning Thursday and tied the tournament record with a 63, featuring seven birdies and an eagle on the short par-4 No. 3. Copper Rock history is favorable to Cooper’s hopes of winning, considering she shares the record with the last two champions, Savannah Carlson and Fiona Xu (along with Sue Oh). 

Cooper played at Texas A&M for Coach Gerrod Chadwell, who was six-time Women’s State Amateur champion Kelsey Chugg’s junior college coach in Oklahoma.

Phelan almost became a UGA winner in the Winterchamps final round at Copper Rock, but Cesarek edged her by one point. Cesarek earned the final Epson Tour invitation with her UGA victory; Phelan already had been chosen for Utah Tech’s spot. 

The Winterchamps experience was “very helpful, because I’d never played this course competitively until that one, and I think that helped me get in a good mindset for today’s round,” said Phelan, a rising junior from Henderson, Nevada. 

Teeing off on No. 10, Phelan bogeyed her first two holes before the birdies started coming, offsetting three more bogeys. Phelan wanted her short game to be sharper, but she generally liked how she played as teammate Jane Olson, a former Women’s State Am semifinalist, caddied for her. “I thought I would be a little more nervous,” she said, “but (with) two years of college golf under my belt, I handled the nerves pretty well.”

Cesarek was trending toward a respectable round, but bogeyed the last three holes. Teeing off more than an hour after Phelan, she dealt with considerably more wind at the end. 

Cesarek is the first woman to claim a play-in spot in the Copper Rock Championship, via the UGA exemption that tournament organizers awarded. But the Tucson, Arizona, native couldn’t maintain the consistency of that Winterchamps round in March, when she made 17 pars and one bogey. 

“Much different,” she said, comparing the two environments. “It feels bigger. Obviously, the UGA event is huge and very important to me, but something like this … it’s a different stage.”

Cesarek added, “Not going to lie; there were some nerves at the beginning, but just a great experience.”

Among the three Utah Tech golfers who have played a total of five rounds in the Copper Rock Championship, Grace Williams still claims the best score of 72, which she posted in last May’s second round. Former BYU golfer Lila Galea’i is the only Utah sponsor-invite ever to make the cut, having done so in both 2023 and ‘24.  

Click here for the Epson Tour Copper Rock Championship opening round leaderboard.

Feature written by Fairways Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe. Photos by Fairways Media/Randy Dodson.