Levittown's Annie Park qualifies for U.S. Women's Open

In her official biography for the University of Southern California women's golf team, which she led to a record-setting NCAA championship last week, Annie Park lists Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton as her favorite course. Chances are, she will like the place even more now that she has qualified to play there in the biggest tournament in women's golf.

The Long Island prodigy, an 18-year-old from Levittown, earned a place in the first U.S. Women's Open ever to be held on Long Island.

Because she played flawlessly through 36 withering holes at Edgewood Country Club Thursday -- never making a bogey as she placed first at 8 under par -- she will play among the best female golfers in the world at Sebonack June 27-30.

It will be the second consecutive Women's Open appearance for Park, who played last year at Blackwolf Run in Kohler, Wis., just after her junior year at MacArthur High. But this will be different, and almost indescribably special because it is so close to home.

"It was my goal to play at Sebonack, ever since I knew about it. I'm pretty excited," she said after sharing medalist honors with 15-year-old Canadian Brooke Henderson.

Park was on the Metropolitan Golf Association team that played against a team from France last fall at Sebonack, and she fell in love with the course.

"I like the undulations, the toughness. The greens are awesome, the wind is challenging. I guess the challenge is what I like,'' she said. "You have a nice view as well."

Joe Carson of Hampton Bays, a regular caddie at Sebonack, carried her bag at that French-American Challenge and did such a good job that Park hired him to loop again Thursday.

"This is a really good experience to see her game, to kind of see what she's capable of doing. I think at Sebonack she's got a good shot,'' he said.

The golfer who graduated high school in December has a U.S. Open mentality, on and off the course. She was unflappable Thursday, saving par with big putts, like a 30-foot downhill roller on No. 11 in her afternoon round. Park also was unfazed by the magnitude of what she has done recently: winning the Pac-12, West Region and NCAA individual titles.

When asked about all that, she said, "It has been a good season.''

She insisted that she has no plans to scrap college and turn pro, though she might accelerate her studies and get her diploma a year early. She probably will take courses at Nassau Community College this summer.

Friday, she will go to MacArthur High graduation rehearsal and see friends she hasn't seen in months. "We're going to the beach afterward,'' she said.

In four weeks, the Long Islander will play elite golf on the shore of Peconic Bay.

"That's perfect," Becky McDaid, assistant pro at Friar's Head in Riverhead, former U.S. Women's Amateur champ and former star at USC, said after her round Thursday. "Not only is she playing in it, she's got a shot to win it."