MEDINA, MINN. -- Recent Drake graduate Oliva Lansing continued a torrid summer on the golf course by winning the 15th annual Minnesota Women's State Match Play Championship with a 4&3 victory past No. 1 seeded Mary Narzisi Thursday at the Baker National Golf Club.
This was the fourth victory in a month on Minnesota turf for Lansing.
She won the Minnesota Women's Public Golf Association's Match Play Championship in mid-June, and combined with Ben Freeman, who plays for the Drake men's team, to win the MGA Mixed Team Championship two weeks later.
Last weekend, Lansing came from five shots behind with a final round of 68 at New Prague Golf Club to win the MWPGA's Stroke Play championship.
In her spare time, she flew to England and made it through the stroke-play qualifying at the British Women's Amateur all the way to the quarterfinals, beating a former champion and two-time Curtis Cupper along the way.
The only tournament she's played in Minnesota and hasn't won wasn't really a tournament. It was the U.S. Amateur Qualifying at Minikahda. Lansing shot 74 and was second to Wisconsin high school prodigy Casey Danielson by a stroke.
"I think I've improved a lot in the last couple of years," Lansing speculated. "I'm hitting it a little farther, and I've improved my ball-striking. I'm also just older, and I manage my game and my emotions better. When I hit a bad shot, I don't get mad and depressed. I just try to make the next shot a good one. That's all you can do."
Lansing and Narzisi were co-medalists this week. They both shot even-par 74's in Monday's qualifying round, which made them the top two seeds in the tournament, and they have looked the parts ever since.
Lansing, who won nine college tournaments during her four years at Drake, opened the quarterfinal round of match play Wednesday morning with a 4&3 victory past 10th-seeded Emily Roering, a former state high school champ from Minnewaska who is between her freshman and sophomore years at Colorado State.
Lansing, the 2009 and 2010 Missouri Valley Conference Women's Golfler of the Year, beat Lizzy Carl, 2&1 in the semifinal round of match play Wednesday afternoon.
Lansing made two birdies on the front nine Thursday, which gave her a 2-up advantage. She hit a 15-yard pitch to six feet and made the putt for her first birdie of the day at No. 3, a 446-yard par-5.
She made a 20-footer for another birdie at the sixth.
Narzisi's best chances to close the gap came at the 355-yard ninth hole and 481-yard 10th. At No. 9, she hit a 15-foot that looked good all the way but refused to go down and ended up 1 inch beyond the cup on the high side of the hole.
"It's the law of averages," said Narzisi, who was philosophical about the loss. "I was 8 under for my two matches, and Olivia should have made eight birdies, but didn't make anything. Today it was her turn to make the putts."
In a couple of cases, she didn't need to putt at all, such as No. 12, a 150-yard par-3 where Lansing hit a 5-hybrid to a foot from the cup and was conceded her birdie. That, combined with Narzisi's three-putt bogey from the hole before, increased the lead to 4 up.
Basically, Lansing hit one bad shot tee to green on Thursday. That was a thinned 3-wood at the 420-yard, par-5 13th hole, and it led to her only bogey.
"That was a terrible bogey," she said. "I made a bad swing with the 3-wood; so then I had to get all of my wedge on the next shot, and I didn't quite do that. And I still wasn't very far from the hole in three (about 25 feet). I probably should have putted instead of chipped. I just gave that hole away."
She wasted no time in restoring her 4-up lead, however. Her wedge approach to a front pin at No. 14 (352, par 4) left her with a 3-foot birdie putt. Narzisi's wedge was nearly as good, but it stopped 3 feet short of the green. From there, she made one of her few mistakes, a careless chip that went 10 feet past. When she missed the come-backer for par, she conceded Lansing's birdie.
Lansing then closed out the match at the 185-yard 15th hole, where her tee shot was just short and right of the green. She chipped to 3 feet and tapped the championship-clinching putt into the center of the cup with perfect speed.
