Pro details ‘scary’ events that led to U.S. Women’s Open club mix-up

ERIN, Wis. — Amari Avery’s week at the U.S. Women’s Open has been anything but ordinary.

On Friday afternoon, reports began surfacing that Avery — a 20-year-old pro from California — was playing the second round at Erin Hills with the clubs of fellow pro Gabi Ruffels. The reason for the mid-tournament club switch? A costly mix-up which led to her boyfriend — fellow USC golfer Gavin Aurilia — accidentally flying to Phoenix with Avery’s bag in tow.

“We use the same [travel bag] from USC, so it’s obviously the exact same, it looks the exact same,” Avery said. “We actually didn’t realize until about like 12:15 before my tee time. So it was a little bit of a scramble. We tried to figure it out.”

Once she noticed the mix-up, Avery had to scramble to find a replacement set. Luckily for her, Ruffels, a close friend and fellow Taylormade staffer, played in the morning wave and had missed the cut, so she agreed to lend her set out. With the loaners, Avery posted a one-over 73 to survive the cut.

“It was fortunate for me and she’s obviously a very class act, great friend of mine, so she lended me the clubs,” Avery said. “[I’m] Just happy to be here.”

After her third round, Avery met with the media to share her account of the situation that set off this wild sequence of events.

According to her account, she and her family were woken up early Friday morning by a burglar attempting to get into their Airbnb. Avery’s father told everyone in the house that they needed to get up in case they needed to “get running.”

“It was just scary, like a bit of a panic at first,” Avery said. “It was just a scary time. We were trying to figure out what to do. We called the police. It took them 15, 20 minutes to get to the house, so it was just kind of scary waiting there.

“My boyfriend, my mom, and my dad saw the person outside the door, so it was a little bit scary. We just kind of stayed back away from the front door and we were just kind of hoping it would solve itself, which it was nice that the guy ended up leaving and the police came and made us feel more safe.”

Avery and her family waited until daybreak to pack up their belongings and then set out to find a hotel to move into for the remainder of the week. They took all of their clothes but left the two sets of clubs in case they could not find a new place to stay.

Once they had secured new lodging, Avery’s father and Aurilla headed back to the Airbnb to retrieve the clubs. But with Aurilla flying out that morning to get to a tournament of his own, they headed straight to the airport. And as Aurilla was unloading the car at the airport, he grabbed the wrong travel bag.

“I think it’s equally my dad and my boyfriend’s fault for not checking the bags,” she said. “They loaded it in the car, my dad took him to the airport, and he grabbed the wrong set.”

After the scramble to find replacement clubs — and some thoughts of withdrawing — Avery actually played quite well. Despite some slightly different specs between her own clubs and Ruffels’, Avery managed to post a 1-over 73 and make it to the weekend.

“It was nice that it was able to work,” she said. “Once I got out on the course I figured why think, ‘Oh, I’m hitting Gabi’s 7-iron’ instead of just thinking, ‘Let me just go out here and play.’ I feel like I’m playing pretty good. We got numbers on the range that are pretty accurate to what my numbers are, so it felt pretty good.”

Luckily for Avery, Aurilla’s mother was able to hop on a flight back up to Wisconsin with the clubs in tow and arrived in time for the third round. Ironically enough, Avery posted a lower score with Ruffels’ clubs on Friday than she did with her own in Round 3.

“I felt like Gabi’s clubs were honestly pretty good,” she said. “I joked with her last night after I called her and I said, obviously, ‘Thank you so much for lending me the clubs.’ [But] I was like, ‘I might take your putter.’”