South Women Snap 3-Year Skid In Winning 2018 Silver Cup (VIDEO)

The South women’s team breezed to victory in the 2018 Silver Cup, snapping a three-year run by the North squad in the annual competition. The South posted a 21-15 victory in the event which was held Nov. 12-14 at Chimera Golf Club in Henderson, Nev. –By Bill Bowman, Las Vegas Golf Insider staff.

The South victory snapped a three-year run by the North squad. The North won 22½-17½ in 2017 at Somersett Golf and Country Club in Reno for its third straight victory.

The Ryder Cup-style tournament, which was held for the 27th straight year, featured 20 women from the Women’s Southern Nevada Golf Association and 20 women representing the Northern Nevada Women’s Golf Association.

In the 2018 event, the South squad built up a 6½-3½ point lead after the opening day’s alternate shot round.

The second day, featuring a best-ball format, the South team lead remained at three points following a 5-to-5 split setting up the final round’s singles matches.

The South used a 9½-5½ victory in the singles matches to cruise to the victory.

The singles matches saw the South win the first two matches out before the North rallied with three straight wins and a half. The two squads split the next two matches before the South rattled off five straight victories to seal the win. Five matches were not completed after the South had the victory in hand.

For the South, it was the opening day that got things off to the hot start.

“We just started off great,” said Karen Herness, South team co-captain. “Usually if you do well in alternate shot, you’ll do well in the tournament.”

To that end, the South team had a method to their madness.

“The key was we waited and practiced the alternate shot the last three weeks,” Herness said. “We won pretty big and that set us off running. We had a plan and it worked.”

Wait a minute, practiced?

“We worked really hard,” Herness said. “We had five months of team practices. We had team challenges and skills challenges. We worked hard on the short game as a team.”

But, there was still a little concern after the second day’s 5-5 tie.

“When we tied (Tuesday) it did give us a little bit of a pause,” Herness said. “But we came out (Wednesday) and everyone played well.”

The South also had a little on-the-fly challenges as well

“Sherry Jackson was injured so Sue May stepped in to fill in,” Herness said. “Sherry worked behind the scenes to help us out and was an on-course captain because Rusty (Beckel, the other co-captain) was on the course playing and so she couldn’t captain.”

Overall, Hernes said the teamwork was the key.

“It was absolutely a team effort,” she said. “They played egoless and played their hearts out for each other.”

The 2019 Silver Cup will be held in Reno.