Photo by John Mummert, USGA

Amber Marsh Elliott wins U.S. Women's Mid-Am

 By STEVE HUFFMAN

 It’s not that Amber Marsh Elliott gave up on golf, it’s just that for the longest while, she didn’t have a lot of time for the sport.

“I was working,” said the Jamestown native and Greensboro resident. “I didn’t have time to play or practice.”

All that changed this past spring when Elliott, 34, resigned as assistant golf coach at UNC-Chapel Hill and turned more of her attention to playing the game instead of just teaching it.

She said that whereas she’d played only a handful of times between January and May, after that, she began taking to the links more often, playing almost every day for several months. Along the way, she got the assistance of a personal trainer to help work her body into shape, and a swing coach (Kelley Phillips of Greensboro Country Club) to help her make the most of her strokes. 

The efforts paid dividends.

In October, Elliott traveled to Hilton Head, S.C., where she captured her first national title at the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur. She beat Charlotte’s Shannon Ogg 3 and 2 in the tournament’s final, which was played at Long Cove Golf Club.

“I didn’t go into the tournament with any great expectations,” Elliott said. “I took it one match at a time. I never got beyond the present.”

It’s probably just as well that Elliott didn’t agonize over an occasional errant shot.

In her match against Ogg, Elliott fell three holes behind following a three-putt on the seventh green.

“I just came off the green and laughed,” Elliott recalled. “I knew I was capable of better golf. I never thought, ‘Oh, gosh, I’m three down.’ ”

That temporary miscue aside, Elliott played exceptionally well during the tournament.

“All parts of my game came together — both mentally and physically,” she said.

Elliott gave professional golf a try back around 1990, playing briefly on the Futures Tour.

Elliott said she had some fun in the endeavor, but realized quickly that professional golf wasn’t for her.

“It’s just a different lifestyle,” she said. “I couldn’t play professionally and lead a balanced lifestyle.”

Elliott is a graduate of Ragsdale High School and UNC where she majored in English. She married in August. Her husband, Jeff, is an associate commissioner of the ACC.

The week that Elliott won the Mid-Amateur was the same week that Boston College was accepted for admittance into the ACC, so her husband couldn’t see as much of her play as they’d both have liked.

 Golf runs in Elliott’s family. Her older sister, Page Marsh, lost in the final of the 1989 and 1990 Mid-Amateurs. Page Marsh is women’s golf coach at N.C. State University.

En route to her Mid-Amateur championship, Elliott defeated two-time winner Carol Semple Thompson who had defeated her sister in the 1989 final.

Elliott said she feels she’s playing as well as she’s ever played, and said she’s looking forward to competing in a number of other amateur events in coming months. Her Mid-Amateur win earned her an exception into the Mid-Amateur and Amateur in 2004, and she said she plans to attempt to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open.

“I’m determined to qualify for the Open,” Elliott said. “Fortunately, I’m playing the best golf of my life right now.”