I can’t honestly say I paid that much attention to Yuka Saso
when the then-15-year-old from the Philippines made it all the way to the
semifinals of the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Rolling Green Golf Club.
I was there every day except the 36-hole final live-blogging
away and my sharpest memory of Saso was that the kid just wouldn’t go away.
That’s pretty much what the 18-year-old did this week in winning the Girls
Junior PGA Championship at the Keney Park Golf Course in Windsor, Conn.
Saso opened with a 5-under-par 65 that gave her a share of
the lead after the first round and added rounds of 68 and 66 in the middle two
rounds that kept her very much in contention for one of the biggest titles in
junior golf in this country.
And then in the middle of a pressure-packed final round Friday
when 2017 winner Rose Zhang of Irvine, Calif. started to falter ever so
slightly, Saso made her move. In an 11-hole stretch from the seventh to the 17th
holes, Saso ripped off five birdies on her way to a final round of 3-under 67.
It left Saso with a 14-under 266 total and a two-shot
victory over Jensen Castle of West Columbia, S.C. who finished off a pretty
strong showing of her own with a 3-under 67 that earned her runnerup honors at
12-under 268. Castle will join the Kentucky program later this summer.
Saso earned her spot in the semifinals at Rolling Green with
a 2 and 1 victory over Japanese teen Nasa Hataoka, who, I’m pretty sure, became
the first player from that week to emerge as a winner of an LPGA event.
A quarterfinalist from the other side of the bracket from
Saso, Australian Hannah Green, who, again I’m pretty sure, became the first
major professional champion to emerge from that U.S. Women’s Amateur when she
won the KPMG PGA Women’s Championship last month at Hazeltine National Golf
Club in Chaska, Minn. I’ve got a post bouncing around in my head on all the
great players who were in that field, but the point is, Saso was one of them.
“Winning in the United States is really special,” Saso told
the PGA of America website. “It’s really hard to do since I live in Asia. I’m
just really happy and thankful.”
Saso’s name will be inscribed on the Patty Berg Trophy along
with some of the greatest junior players over the years. The victory also gives
her a spot in next spring’s 2nd Augusta National Women’s Amateur
Championship if she remains an amateur.
Zhang, No. 16 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking
(WAGR), had surged to the top of the leaderboard with middle rounds of 63 and
68, but her putter cooled off Friday and she ended up with a 3-over 73 that
left her in a tie for fourth with Alexa Pano, the 14-year-old phenom from Lake
Worth, Fla., at 9-under 271.
The 16-year-old Zhang, who plans to join the powerhouse
Stanford program in the summer of 2021, won the Girls Junior PGA Championship
two years ago at the Country Club of St. Albans’ Lewis & Clark Course and was
the runnerup to fellow Cali girl Yealimi Noh a year ago at the Kearney Hill
Golf Links in Lexington, Ky. So, first, second and fourth in the last three
years. Pretty strong.
Third place went to Pano’s partner in this spring’s U.S.
Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship at Timuquana Country Club in
Jacksonville, Fla., Amari Avery, a 15-year-old from Riverside, Calif. Pano and
Avery lost in the semifinals at Timuquana to eventual champions and future Duke
teammates Megan Furtney and Erica Shepherd.
Avery holed for eagle on the 16th hole Friday in
a furious finish that saw her fire a 7-under 63 that gave her an 11-under 269
total.
Pano, No. 39 in the Women’s WAGR, showed her flair for the
dramatic when her shot with a pitching wedge at the 127-yard, par-3 sixth hole found the
bottom of the cup for a hole-in-one. The ace helped Pano finish up with a
2-under 68 and join Zhang in a tie for fourth at 9-under, two shots behind her
pal Avery. Pano finished alone in fourth a year ago at Kearney Hill.
Megha Ganne of Holmdel, N.J., a four-time qualifier for the
Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals, and Melanie Green of Medina, N.Y., a
two-time state champion in New York, shared sixth place at 8-under 272. Ganne
closed with a 1-under 69 while Green, who will join the South Florida program
in the summer of 2020, matched par in the final round with a 70.
Rachel Heck of Memphis, Tenn., No. 14 in the Women’s WAGR
and the 2017 American Junior Golf Association’s Rolex Player of the Year,
headed a group of three players tied for eighth at 7-under 273.
Heck, who will join the Stanford program in the summer of
2020, closed with a 1-under 69, giving her four rounds in the 60s. Kind of
tells you all you need to know about the level of competition in the junior
ranks when a player of Heck’s caliber betters par in all four rounds and
finishes tied for eighth.
A couple of gals headed for Division I college golf, Alyssa
Montgomery of Knoxville, Tenn. and Anna Morgan of Spartanburg, S.C., joined
Heck in the trio tied at 272 as each finished up with a sparkling 5-under 65.
Montgomery will join the Virginia Tech program later this summer while Morgan
is headed for perennial power Furman.
Archmere Academy senior Phoebe Brinker of Wilmington, Del.
finished up with a solid 1-over 71 that left her in the group tied for 13th
at 5-under 275. Brinker started the week off with a bang when she fired a
5-under 65 to get a share of the opening-round lead.
It was a great week for the three-time Delaware high school
champion as she got to play in front of her aunt, Suzi Whaley, who was at Keney
Park in her role as the president of the PGA of America.
Caroline Wrigley, who captured the PIAA Class AAA
Championship as a senior at North Allegheny last fall, finished strong with a
1-under 69 Friday that left her among the group tied for 24th at
2-under 278. Wrigley added the Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ title at Hershey
Country Club’s East Course last month to her scholastic state crown.
Wrigley, part of what sounds like a pretty strong recruiting
class at Furman along with Morgan, is playing some great golf as she heads for
the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship later this month at SentryWorld in Stevens
Point, Wis.
Recent Conestoga graduate Samantha Yao will also take some
momentum with her to SentryWorld as she closed with a 75 at Keney Park to
finish alone in 68th place at 12-over 292. By making the cut and
playing four rounds in the Girls Junior PGA Championship, Yao did a nice job of
representing the Philadelphia Section PGA at Keney Park.
Yao, a two-time District One Class AAA champion during a
standout scholastic career, will join the Dartmouth program later this summer.
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