TAYLOR TOTLAND MAKES LPGA TOUR DEBUT AT SHOPRITE CLASSIC

As a teenager playing for Red Bank Catholic, Taylor Totland remembers walking down the 18th fairway of the Bay course at the Stockton Seaview Resort in Galloway with her father, D.J., the grandstands in place for the ShopRite LPGA Classic’s annual stop. ``My dad said `you’re going to get here one day,’ ‘’ Totland recalled. ``And I was like, `yes, I hope so.’ ‘’ Early Monday afternoon, her first practice round of the week coming to a close, it all came full circle, as Totland, a year removed from an All-American college career at Furman, prepared to make her first LPGA Tour appearance an hour south of her Tinton Falls home. ``So as I was walking down 18, remembering that conversation and now actually being in this position, I was like `wow,’ ‘’ she said. Totland, who won the 2012 NJSIAA title and was a four-time Shore Conference champion, is playing on a sponsor’s exemption at ShopRite, with the $1.75-million, 54-hole event getting underway on Friday. She’s the second Shore Conference product to play at ShopRite, with Sukjin Lee earning a spot via the Monday qualifying while she was a junior at Toms River North in 2003 – she won the U.S. Girls’ Junior later that summer – and playing on a sponsor’s exemption in 2004. So far this season, Totland has made just one cut in five Symetra Tour events. But the fact that she’s out there at all is something of a success story. After earned a Symetra Tour exemption at LPGA Tour Qualifying School in 2016, Totland returned to Furman to finish her senior season, turning pro after she and Furman teammate Alice Chen won the U.S. Women’s Four-Ball Championship last June. But by August, Totland back home in Tinton Falls, dealing with an illness on the road that left her exhausted, caused her to lose weight, and ultimately sent her golf game into a tailspin. ``At one point they thought I had leukemia. They just didn’t know,’’ Totland said. ``Finally, I was diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome). But it was horrible. I was hitting my drives 210 yards, 215 if I really cranked it. ``It wasn’t the best introduction to professional golf, because I was on the road, I was sick, I was trying to play good golf and I wasn’t playing good golf and that was discouraging. So I think it was good when my parents said `you need to come home.’ ’’ Totland didn't feel healthy again until Novermber, applying for and receiving a medical exemption to play on the Symetra Tour this season. Her appearance at ShopRite is just the latest step on what has been a steep learning curve. ``Coming out of college, you have your coaches there, you have your teammates and if things aren’t going right your coaches are there to fix it,’’ she said. ``Now it’s just your trying to figure it out yourself for a four-week timespan on the road. I think that was probably the biggest adjustment. Because I love the travel. I met a lot of nice people. The traveling was great. It was just that was a hard adjustment for me to make.’’ Now Totland hopes to jumpstart her career against a field packed with the greatest female golfers on the planet, including defending champion In-Kyung Kim. Totland’s former RBC teammate Molly McHugh carried her bag on Monday, with her father scheduled to take over on Tuesday and be there through the weekend. ``I love the course,’’ she said. ``I think it sets up really well for me. It focuses more on shorter clubs, and I knew that so really been focusing this past week or two, trying to dial in my shorter numbers. ``I think it’s just going to be a really cool week. I knew I’ve always to play an LPGA event and if it worked out, I wanted it to be this one first, a Jersey tournament. So it’s kind of surreal that the way it all turned out.’’

TAYLOR TOTLAND MAKES LPGA TOUR DEBUT AT SHOPRITE CLASSIC

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app.com | 6/7/2018