EVANS, Ga. — If Spain’s Carla Bernat Escuder goes on to win the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, she may have last year’s U.S. Amateur champion, Josele Ballester, to thank. Escuder enters Saturday’s final round at Augusta National just one shot behind leaders Kiara Romero and last year’s champion Lottie Woad.
Bernat Escuder, 21, grew up just a few doors down from Ballester, who last year at Hazeltine National became the first player from Spain to lift the Havemeyer Trophy.
“I have pictures of us when we were 7 with no teeth, with tennis rackets,” she said. The two remain close friends, bonded in part by the same swing coach Victor Garcia, Sergio’s dad. Just a few months ago, Bernat Escuder reached out to Ballester for help on the one part of her game that was missing.
Bernat Escuder, a senior at Kansas State after playing two years at Tulane, has long been an elite ball striker, but she lacked the “Spanish hands” that have come so naturally to many of the country’s great players, including Seve Ballesteros, Jose Maria Olazabal, and yes, Ballester. Specifically, Bernat Escuder was struggling with a high, soft flop shot that is often needed to contend around championship setups with firm greens. She reconnected with Ballester, who is currently a senior at Arizona State, over Christmas break for help.
“He’s helped me a lot with the technical stuff with chipping,” said Bernat Escuder, currently ranked 29th in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. “He helps me with flop shots. He tells me to put my hands a little lower and put the hands back. And’s it’s worked. I’m chipping better.”
The adjustments have been paying off so far this week in Georgia, where over the first two rounds at Champions Retreat, Bernat Escuder made just one bogey en route to two consecutive 68s. The play is a continuation of her remarkable comeback last year in this championship, when after opening with 78, she shot the low round of the second day (69) in blustery conditions to make the cut. In the final round at Augusta National, she shot even-par 72 to finish T-17. After Friday’s practice round at Augusta National, Bernat Escuder will have a chance to improve upon that finish as she sits tied for third place at eight under, one shot behind Woad and Romero.
Should Bernat Escuder win at Augusta National, she would become the first Spanish champion of the ANWA, just as Ballester was the first Spaniard to win the U.S. Amateur. Interestingly, only one Spanish player has finished inside the top 10 in the five-year history of this championship, which rings odd considering the widespread success of Spaniard’s in the Masters—Ballesteros, Olazabal, Garcia and Jon Rahm. To be sure, Escuder’s newfound flop shot should be especially helpful around Augusta’s raised, dramatically sloped greens.
In many ways, Bernat Escuder and Ballester’s journey into golf was similar as well. Like Ballester, Bernat Escuder played a lot of tennis growing up and showed plenty of promise before ultimately choosing golf.
“We started playing tennis together, and we changed to golf more or less at the same time,” she said. “Golf is more social. Tennis is more individual. I like hanging out with my friends on the golf course and playing games against them. You can also play golf for longer. During the day you can play for six hours, while tennis, six hours you can’t.”
Of comparable skill on the court, Bernat Escuder and Ballester would often play tennis matches against each other, but Bernat Escuder says there was no debate over who was better.
“He’s good. I’m better. He even said that I’m better than him,” she said.
It was in breaks from tennis matches like those that Bernat Escuder walked over to the range at her home golf club and ultimately fell in love with the game. After starting to work with Garcia when she was 13, her game took off. In 2021, she won the Spanish International Ladies Amateur before enrolling at Tulane in 2022.
After her sophomore season, when she was named the conference player of the year, Bernat Escuder followed her coaches Stew Burke and Rinko Mitsunaga as they all transferred to Kansas State. Last season in her junior year, she became the first player in the program’s history to earn All-America honors, and she already has two individual wins in her senior campaign.
In her two victories this season, she won by nine and seven shots respectively, and each time closed with 67—the result of improved chipping, yes, but perhaps more importantly, a fearless mindset that seeks not to hold on to a lead but lengthen it. It’s the same mindset Bernat Escuder says she will be taking into the final round at Augusta National on Saturday even though she is the chaser.
“I’m going to sleep OK because I can chase instead of be chased in this moment,” she said. “I came here to win, right? I don’t want to think about people behind me, just in front.”
