GUCE SHARES THOUGHTS ON TOUR FAMILY
A two-time champion on the Epson Tour, Clariss Guce (Artesia, California) matched Gabsa’s round also carding a 6-under par 66 in Battle Creek, Mich. She will join Gabsa and Daniela Iacobelli in the final grouping tomorrow. Guce and Gabsa are good friends on Tour and tomorrow will not be their first round together this week as they typically schedule practice rounds together.
“I mean that's kind of what we do in practice rounds. We always play little games and kind of seeing her name up there, you're just kind of like ‘Ok you have to go get your friend now,” said Guce. “It’s just fun competition and every time we kind of saw each other like across the fairway today, just waving, in my mind, I’m like ‘coming to get you’.”
Guce has been on Tour since 2016 and has continued to make new friends over the years. After the round today, Samantha Wagner’s dad/caddy walked past with a big grin on his face. She shared the reason behind the smile.
“He fixed me in the practice round. I played a practice round with Sam, they helped me out with my wedge game and definitely helped me out to the last couple of days,” said Guce. “It's an open secret that everybody wants to beat each other, but it's nice to still have a friendship at the end. You know it’s a ‘I want to beat you, but if you beat me, it just makes me want to work harder,’ type of mindset. Some girls out here are nice enough to even share what they do well and help you out. And I think that's a comradery on this tour that we can't find anywhere else.”