Maggie Yuan doesn't consider putting the best part of her game. Yet a few weeks ago when her flat iron answered the call, the BYU sophomore from Sichuan, China, by way of Australia had a day most golfers dream about.
Yuan and her Cougar teammates are headed to the MWC championships at Black Horse Golf Club in Seaside, Calif., this week, and her team is predicted to pile up somewhere behind nationally ranked TCU and New Mexico.
But back on March 22 at Entrada in St. George during the first round of the Entrada Golf Classic, Yuan started off a little shaky, then nailed a round for the ages, an 8-under par 64.
It broke the school and course record at Entrada for a woman and was one stroke off the men's course record. As far as I can tell, Yuan's 64 is the lowest round carded by a female collegian this year, and that's from a field of thousands.
"I'm not a very good putter," Yuan said on Monday just before hitting some balls before a practice round at Riverside Country Club.
"That's probably the weakest part of my game," she said.
That day, she made putts.
The crazy part of this story certainly is her nine birdies. But the best part of it is what she overcame on the first hole.
The first hole at Entrada is a decent long par-4, but for the women it was set up as a par-5.
Yuan got to within 15-yards of the green in two shots and prepared for a chip-in eagle. But she hit it thin and her approach skidded past the hole, leaving a long putt back to the front pin. She ended up three-putting for a bogey six.
At the very least, she should have walked off with a par. And with a decent chip, she should have carded a birdie. Looking back, that hole cost her a chance at a sizzling 62.
And who wouldn't take that in a Phil Mickelson second?
Back to the round.
Yuan birdied the next three holes. She then birdied 8 and 9 for a 32 on the front. On the back, she birdied 12, 13, 15 and 16, the par-5 in the wicked, twisting dogleg set in the middle of the lava field and finished the back with a 32.
The longest putt Yuan had that day was just inside 20 feet, and she hit 13 greens in regulation.
"It was amazing, it really was," said her coach, former BYU quarterback Robbie Bosco, who took over coaching duties this fall for the women's golf team.
Yuan said it was Bosco who got her putting successfully that day.
"I don't read greens very well. I just don't. He came around that day and made all my reads and I just hit them. It was fun."
While Yuan was born and raised in China, her parents sent her to Australia when she was 14. The reason? To golf.
She is now a naturalized Australian citizen and holds an Australian passport. She came to the United States in hopes of furthering her golf talent and hopes to someday play on the LPGA Tour.
"Technically, I'm an Australian, but I'm really Chinese," she said.
"I have a lot of friends who are Korean from Australia who are doing very well playing golf. I came to BYU because it is a really good school academically and it gives me a good balance and that's what I wanted. I'd like to play professional golf after college, but if that doesn't happen, I'll go back to China and be with my family."
Like her teammates, Yuan had no idea who Bosco was when he was introduced as the golf coach. "We had no idea he was famous, especially me because I don't watch any football.
"But he's a great guy and everyone likes him. He's there for us. We know he isn't a professional golfer or anything. We all know how to play the game, but he's a guy we can turn to if we have a problem and he's been very good to talk to — that's what we wanted."
Yuan said the best part of her game is consistency. She drives it 240 yards consistently straight, and her irons are generally solid.
"That day, I bogeyed the easiest hole on the course. I missed a 4-footer. I just let it go, there were 17 other holes waiting for me. The greens were hard that day, so my strategy was to hit it 8 feet short of the pin and let it release and it worked."
In her most recent tournament in Tucson, Ariz., Yuan fired rounds of 73, 75 and 79.
"If I could only putt, I could shoot 64 all the time," she said.
"Any time I post a good round, it's when I make my putts."
Tiger Woods can relate.
e-mail: dharmon@desnews.com