AMARI AVERY IS frustrated. It’s her first hole of the day, and her drive on the par-4 10th hole at Rancho Santa Fe Country Club in California has fizzled barely 150 yards along the right rough. Now she stands behind her golf ball, lodged deep in the six-inch-long grass, more than 165 yards from the green, positioned behind a tree. She shakes her head, throws up her arms and chuckles.
“I completely mishit it,” Avery says. “All I could do was laugh.”
Today is June 5, also known as the “longest day in golf,” when hundreds of amateur and professional golfers tee it up for 36 holes of stroke play to qualify for the U.S. Open and the U.S. Women’s Open. This year’s U.S. Women’s Open, starting July 6, will be staged for the first time at Pebble Beach Golf Links, the famed course where some of golf’s greatest names, such as Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Tiger Woods, have been crowned champion. But there are only two spots available at this…
