SUNNINGDALE, England — Almost three decades have passed since a Women’s Amateur champion teed up in the Curtis Cup wearing America’s colors. Kelli Kuehne was the last to do so in 1996. But this week at Sunningdale the answer to that particular trivia question changed. Melanie Green, who ironically won the 2024 “British” at Portmarnock in the Republic of Ireland, is now the appropriate response.

A worthy one, too, although Green is quick to play down the significance of individual success when she is in the middle of a team environment. Although she did express some regret at not being able to take advantage of her exemption into last week’s AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews. Her “excuse” was a good one though. Instead of a trip to the Home of Golf, Green successfully negotiated Stage 1 of the LPGA Qualifying School. Stage 2 beckons in the middle of October. But, at least for the moment, even that can only be found at the back of Green’s mind.

“It feels great to be Amateur champion, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot this week,” Green said on Saturday at the end the Curtis Cup’s fourth session of team foursome and fourballs that saw the home team take a two-point lead, 7-5, heading into the eight Sunday singles. “This event is all about me and seven other girls. And it has been a lot of fun. But we have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”

Still, Green would be less than human were her mind not to wander back a month or so. Only a week after carrying her own bag through often wild weather en route to the biggest victory of her career in the Women’s Amateur (“I didn’t want to spend money on a caddie and I did just fine on my own”), she was still resident in the Emerald Isle as part of the American team in the Arnold Palmer Cup matches against the International side at Lahinch. Indeed, it was the proximity of the latter event that persuaded Green to enter the Amateur in the first place.

Melanie Green (left) and Rachel Kuehn react during foursomes play on Saturday in the Curtis Cup.

Tom Dulat/R&A

“I was trying to figure out if I should play, but it would have been silly not to,” says Green. “Timewise, it works out perfectly. And it gave me a chance to get used to the conditions in Ireland and adjusted to the time zone. It just made sense.”

Contributing mightily to the five-point U.S. victory in the Palmer, the 22-year-old upstate New Yorker underlined her propensity for links golf by winning three of her four matches. Too, a second day foursome in tandem with Rachel Kuehn and a typically gritty one-hole singles defeat of 2023 Irish champion, Sara Byrne, have turned out to have a special significance.

Certainly, both experiences have come in handy at Sunningdale. All three matches Green has played so far have contained an element of deja vu.

Paired together in the opening foursome on Day 1, the familiar Kuehn/Green team rolled to a 6-and-4 victory over the Rhodes sisters, Mimi and Patience. Then, 24 hours later, the Americans played a halved match with World No. 1 Lottie Woad and Byrne. Green’s third start this week ended less successfully, however. Alongside the left-handed Anna Davis, the Americans went down 2-and-1 to Lorna McClymont (her opponent in the final of the Women’s Amateur) and Beth Coulter.

In both foursomes, Kuehn and Green endeared themselves to the watching spectators by playing foursomes “properly”—the non-striker walking forward when possible to meet the ball hit by her partner. The pity was that their opponents neglected to do likewise, minimizing any benefit to a pace of play that was funereal at best.

“That’s how you are supposed to do it,” Green said of her foursomes strategy. “We were told to do it that way. The GB&I girls seemed to be struggling to understand that you are supposed to walk up.”

Ah, but there are two sides to that debate. Although far from alone in her prolonged sluggishness and in contrast to the promptness of her teammate, teen Asterisk Talley, Green has been less appealing in the amount of time it takes her to hit a shot. The owner of a pre-shot routine best described as “convoluted,” the University of South Florida graduate’s preparation for shots typically involves a lengthy series of fidgets interspersed with a few practice swings and much re-gripping. Only after all that has been completed does the adoption of the address position take place, never mind a takeaway or impact.

All in all, “slow but sure” seems an apt description of this clearly talented individual.

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com