About the only thing Emilee Hoffman did wrong Tuesday afternoon was miss a golden opportunity to give her sponsor a nice little sound bite on her way to winning the ninth annual Larry H. Miller Utah Women’s Open.
Wearing a Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes cap, Hoffman called the cereal brand that sponsors her “incredible” before catching herself and adding, “I guess I should have said ‘They’re Great,’ but that might have been too punny.”
Hoffman, 27, wasn’t incredible or great at The Country Club of Salt Lake City in shooting a two-day total of even-par 144, but she was incredibly consistent in difficult playing conditions to win by three shots over Bountiful’s Haley Sturgeon.
After amateurs — college players — had won the tournament the past six years, Hoffman became the first professional to win the event since Lea Garner in 2018. The former Texas golfer earned $4,000 for the victory, her first since winning the Arizona Women’s Open in 2020.
Sturgeon won $3,000 for the runner-up finish and Ali Mulhall of St. George won $2,500 for finishing in a tie for third with BYU golfer Sunbin Seo of Mapleton. Mulhall and Seo finished a shot behind Sturgeon at 4-over 148.
Bluffdale’s Jane Olson, a Utah Tech golfer, was the second-lowest amateur finisher, carding an 8-over 152.
But this tournament was all Hoffman’s, after she opened with a 71 on Monday and finished with a 73 on Tuesday.
“Honestly, it is hard to lead a golf tournament overnight, and it is hard to close it out once you have a lead, because you are kind of expected to win,” Hoffman said. “There is a little bit more pressure involved. I was just trying to do what I did yesterday.”
Hoffman is a newcomer to the Utah golf scene, having moved here in January when her fiancé, former East High and Texas cross country athlete Garek Bielaczyc, got a job back in his hometown. A member of the Epson Tour, which is the women’s equivalent to the Korn Ferry Tour, Hoffman teaches golf locally at most of the Salt Lake City courses, including Bonneville, Glendale, Rose Park and Mountain Dell.
“It has just been a really warm welcome here,” she said. “I am loving living in Utah.”
Hoffman said she wasn’t scoreboard-watching, which is probably good because for a while Tuesday afternoon, Sturgeon had moved into a tie with her after making a birdie on the par-4 15th hole.
However, Sturgeon made bogeys on 17 and 18 to fall back into second place. Hoffman, who hails from Folsom, California, and lived in Scottsdale, Arizona before moving to Utah, made a birdie on the par-5 13th after wobbling a bit at the start of her back nine.
She did bogey the ultra-tough par-4 18th, but by then it was a runaway.
“I did not want to know (if she was winning),” she said. “I was like, ‘don’t tell me.’ I asked my dad (her caddy) on the last hole. We were walking up to the green, and I said, ‘are we close? What is going on out there?’ He was like, ‘I think you are good.’”
Hoffman made eight birdies in the 36 holes, while Herriman High’s Natalie Mclane made seven birdies and an eagle and was in contention until the back nine. Mclane finished in a tie for ninth with BYU golfer Berlin Long at 9-over 153.
“These greens are so tough. Even coming into a lot of these pins with wedges, it is still really hard to get it close,” Hoffman said. “And it really depends on where you are on these greens. If you are above the hole, you are barely tapping it. The greens are incredible. They are in great shape, and the Country Club and the PGA did a really good job of making it really tough for us out here. It was just a grind.”
Larry H. Miller Utah Women’s Open
final results
- 144 — Emilee Hoffman (71-73)
- 147 — Haley Sturgeon (78-69)
- 148 — Ali Mulhall (76-72), a-Sunbin Seo (76-72)
- 149 — Leighton Shosted (74-75)
- 150 — Tori Peers (78-72)
- 152 — a-Jane Olson (79-73), Faith Kilgore (78-74)
- 153 — a-Berlin Long (79-74)
- 154 — a-Natalie Mclane (74-79), Kiselya Salcedo (80-74), a-Ashley Lam (80-74), Veronica Childs (79-75), a-Kelsey Chugg (78-76)
a-denotes amateur
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