There are days when Cinderella’s slipper fits perfectly, and then there are those times when blisters rule. For Dana Ebster, a teaching pro from California whose club members passed the hat to pay her way to the third U.S. Senior Women’s Open, the walk feels right no matter the footwear.
Ebster came out of nowhere – well, actually, Turlock Golf and Country Club – to shoot 67 in the first round at Brooklawn Country Club on Thursday to tie three-time U.S. Women’s Open champion Annika Sorenstam for the lead. A 74 in the second round sent her into the weekend at 3 under par and still very much in the conversation.
When she made birdies on two of the first three holes in Round 3 on Saturday to get to 5 under par, it seemed as if the dream would continue for another day. But one of the difficulties of championship golf is that you have to perform at a high level for four consecutive days to win.
A poor swing on No. 5 got her out of her rhythm and she made back-to-back bogeys. But the deflating stretch began with a double bogey on No. 9, triggering a run where she played five holes in 5 over par.
The fun returned on No. 15 when she rolled in a curling 15-foot birdie putt, following the ball into the hole with an unbridled dance of joy as she fought back to salvage a 76 to stand at 1-over-par 217, nine strokes behind Sorenstam going into Sunday’s final round.
“I was still like, just hit the fairway and hit the green, and I just – I just tried to keep playing,” Ebster said about whether the fast start changed her thinking. “I chunked one that kind of killed me on the par 3 [No. 5]. Then I went to the next hole and I think I three-putted. I'm not used to the cameras. That’s the one thing. I was like, Oh, my God, there is a camera right there.”
Ebster, who was an alternate and got into the field only because Kay Cockerill withdrew to cover Olympic golf in Tokyo for NBC Sports, traveled across the country to another world. Instead of giving lessons, returning carts to the barn and playing in her Friday women’s group, she was rubbing elbows with legends in the game – and holding her own on the golf course.
“I played with her in junior golf,” Ebster said when told she had replaced Cockerill. “That makes it even better that I took Kay’s spot.”
When she was Dana Arnold, she was a star player at Grace Davis High School in Modesto, Calif. – on the boys team. She was a four-time All-Central California Conference pick. And in 1988, her senior year, she won the national high school girls championship in Connecticut. Several friends from her days as a junior golfer made it to the LPGA Tour, including Pat Hurst and Michelle McGann, both of whom, like Ebster, were competing in the U.S. Senior Women’s Open for the first time.
Among the oddities of Ebster, who makes fresh air feel stale, is that she keeps one of her ball markers in her ear, a habit she started when she was young.
“When I was in junior golf, my mom made skirts for me and they didn’t have pockets and I didn’t have a place to keep my ball marker, so I stuck it in my ear,” she said. “I have the one on my hat but I keep the flat marker in my ear. It has a photo of my daughter Makena and my son Chris.”
Ebster said the pressure of playing in a major championship didn’t get to her as much as the distractions of playing on a big stage.
“I think I just kind of started thinking about there are cameras there and there are people here and I just kind of got out of my little world,” she said. “And I was like, oh my God, this is kind of cool. And then it's like, Wait, you got to play golf.”
But when her birdie putt fell on No. 15 the joy returned.
“Oh, my gosh, so much fun,” she said. “I was so excited. I was like, Yay, it went in the hole. Because to me, that was a tough putt. It was like curling and I was just like, Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited it went in. I though, OK, use that as momentum.”
She’ll ride that momentum into Sunday’s final round, where one more day on the big stage could lead to a return for the fourth U.S. Senior Women’s Open, next August at NCR Country Club in Kettering, Ohio. A top-20 finish would earn that spot.
Maybe those Turlock members should start passing the hat right now.
Ron Sirak is a Massachusetts-based freelance writer who frequently contributes to USGA digital channels.
