Women’s Am Champ Ruffels Evokes Compelling Comparisons

She put the clubs away and tried to relax for a few days – a good call given that temperatures in the Coachella Valley have butted against the 120 mark recently. Dry or not, that’s the kind of heat you use to barbecue a pig. It’s a good thing Gabriela Ruffels had some downtime in California.

The newly minted U.S. Women’s Amateur champion has spent her first week in the worldwide spotlight pretty far away from it. She’s watched some of the men’s U.S. Amateur. She also did a Morning Drive interview on Golf Channel and was on a few radio stations in her native Australia, which required setting some alarms because of time differences. But other than that, the rising University of Southern California junior has been hanging out with family, responding to posts on social media and answering texts from friends, family and a few familiar faces in the game.

“Karrie Webb reached out,” Ruffels said. “She had said on Twitter while I was playing, ‘When I grow up I want to hit my irons like Gabi.’ That was really cool to have Karrie say somet...