Selfie with the champ

Ephrata’s Lenny Harding (left) took this selfie with U.S. Open champion In Gee Chun in the parking lot of Lancaster Country Club just after the tournament Sunday.

Lenny Harding was in the right place at the right time late Sunday afternoon as he checked in to perform his volunteer duties at the Women’s U.S. Open held at Lancaster Country Club.

The Ephrata High School teacher was on the transportation committee at the tournament, providing rides to players, tourney administrators and other such VIPs. And as he was standing waiting in the parking lot, the caddie of Amy Yang, the second-place finisher, walked down to ask him for directions to get back to the hotel.

“I just said to him, ‘do you think (Yang) will take a picture with me?’ He said, ‘yeah, absolutely,’” Harding said. “She was doing an interview and got finished. Then she walked up to us and I asked her for a picture and she obliged. I said, ‘tough luck out there today. Too bad.’ She was really nice. She could have been a lot more depressed or grumpy but she was very polite and very pleasant.”

But Harding didn’t stop there. After seeing In Gee Chun, who overtook Yang on the final hole to win her first U.S. Open, walk into the Media Center, he ran into an acquaintance of Chun’s mother, who wanted to get a photo with the champion.

When Chun returned, Harding took a photo of the two and then asked if he could get a picture with the winner.

“First she signed my badge, which was pretty sweet, and then I just kind of put my phone up for a selfie,” Harding recalled. “I’m terrible at selfies but she was actually helping me. She was moving me around and adjusting it. All I did was snap the photo, but getting pictures with the top two winners, that wasn’t too shabby.”

Indeed.

Harding said he enjoyed performing his duties and his overall experience at the Open. He was able to see a lot of the action, and enjoyed some interaction on the course with a couple other players as well.

“One neat thing was Saturday morning, an amateur player Emma (Talley) from Alabama came over to me as I was near a tee box and said, ‘thanks a lot for volunteering this week. You guys did a great job,’” he said. “She teed off and was coming back so I grabbed my phone and wanted to get a picture. She just walked by and kind of slowed down and posed with a big smile. I thought that was pretty neat.”

A USC college football fan, Harding also got a “Fight On” salute from 16-year-old amateur Muni He, who is committed to attend USC in the future.

And while Chun was the eventual victor Sunday, Harding felt the real winners were Lancaster and the course itself.

“It was unbelievable,” he said. “Lancaster and Lancaster Country Club did such a great job and just to see the joy of the people who were involved after it was all over was neat. They were hugging each other and were just so genuinely happy. They were the ones that kind of won because I don’t think there were many problems anywhere. Everything just ran so smoothly.”