Photo - UK Athletics
No way could Kentucky golfer Jensen Castle ever imagined just how special 2021 could be for her. She was named the 2021 Kentucky Golf Association Women’s Player of the Year Wednesday over all female residents and collegiate players in the state of Kentucky.
No UK player has won the award that was started in 2017 but no UK player had ever won the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship and Castle did that this summer to earn her a spot on the winning U.S. team in the Curtis Cup.
“This year has been unforgettable,” Castle said in a release from UK. “I am so grateful to be a part of the Kentucky family. The support I have received is unbelievable. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without my teammates, my coaches, and everyone who has help me get to where I am.
“To be the Kentucky Golf Association Women’s Player of the Year is a special honor. I have never been a player of the year in South Carolina, where I grew up, and that was always a goal of mine. So this means the world to me.”
What makes Castle’s year even more incredible is that she was slowed by a rib injury that made it doubtful if she would even play in the Women’s Amateur — and then she survived the match play format to win.
She has already been named to the 2022 U.S. Curtis Cup team since the Amateur Championship that awards an automatic spot to the winner will not be played until after the Curtis Cup.
Castle had to survive a playoff just to get into the match play at the Women’s Amateur and then beat some of the nation’s best collegiate players to win — something the No. 63 seed had never done before.
Castle also won the Carolinas Women’s Four-Ball Championship with Wake Forest’s Rachel Kuehn, one of the players she beat in the Amateur.
Before that Castle helped UK reach the NCAA Championship Finals for the first time since 1992.
She has played in two LPGA events.
During the fall UK season, she led the team in scoring average at 71.75 shots per 18-hole round with two top-20 finishes in four tournaments. She had a career-best 8-under par total to finish third in the 54-hole Mason Rudolph Championship.
