Looks like Phoenixville senior Kayley Roberts will come up one frustrating shot short of being part of a playoff for the last three spots in the match-play bracket after play was suspended Tuesday in qualifying in the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at the Atlanta Athletic Club’s Riverside Course in Johns Creek, Ga.
Roberts, whose worst finish in three appearances in the PIAA Class AAA Championship has been fourth place, battled hard Tuesday, turning in a 3-over-par 74 after opening with a 4-over 75 for a 7-over 149 total.
With only a few players left who will return Wednesday morning to complete their rounds, it looks like there’s going to be a bulky playoff, something along the lines of 10 players battling for the final three spots in the match-play bracket, all of them landing on 6-over 148. There was a two-hour weather delay in the middle of the day.
Starting off the 10th tee, Roberts made bogeys at the 15th and 17th holes that left her at 6-over for the championship.
She followed up a birdie at the first hole with a bogey at two, but a birdie at three left her at 1-over for her round and 5-over for the championship. A 5-over finish would have earned Roberts a spot in the match-play bracket.
But bogeys at the fourth and eighth holes on her way to the clubhouse dropped Roberts back to 7-over and, ultimately, bumped her out of a spot among the top 64 who will commence match play following the completion of the second round and the subsequent playoff.
Still, pretty strong showing for a kid making her debut on a national stage in the withering Georgia heat and in a field that includes some of the top amateur players in the world.
The two players who met in the U.S. Girls’ Junior a year ago at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, Calif., Rianne Malixi and Asterisk Talley, came right back a few weeks later and met in the final of the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla.
There are some seriously good players in the U.S. Girls’ Junior field, a point that will be hammered home in a few weeks when the U.S. Women’s Amateur plays out at the Bandon Dunes Resort on the rugged Oregon coastline.
Malixi was still eligible to defend her U.S. Girls’ Junior crown, but chose to accept an invitation to compete in last week’s Amundi Evian Championship, a major on the LPGA Tour held at the Evian Resort Golf Club’s Champions Course in Evian-les-Bains, France.
Talley of Chowchilla, Calif. is back and she added a 2-under 69 in Tuesday’s second round after matching par in the opening round with a 71 and was tied for 10th place when play was suspended with a 2-under 140 total.
At No. 17 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), Talley is the highest-ranked player in the field on that prestigious list.
It was quite a 2024 season for the then 15-year-old Talley. In addition to her runnerup finishes in the U.S. Girls’ Junior and the U.S. Women’s Amateur, she finished in a tie for low-amateur honors in the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Lancaster Country and wore the Red, White & Blue in a hard-fought loss for the United States in the Curtis Cup Match last summer at Sunningdale Golf Club in Berkshire, England.
Looks like the 36-hole total of 6-under 136 turned in by Grace Carter of Jupiter, Fla. will hold up for medalist honors in qualifying.
The 15-year-old Carter is just a Class of 2029 kid, the equivalent of a high school freshman, but if anyone was paying attention to her recent results in the Junior level (ages 12 to 16) of the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) circuit, you might have seen this coming.
Carter was coming off back-to-back wins in the Coca-Cola Junior Championship at The Highlands, which wrapped up July 3rd at The Highlands’ Heather Course in Harbor Springs, Mich., and in the Mahoning Valley Junior All-Stars, which wrapped up a week earlier at the Mill Creek Golf Course’s South Course in Boardman, Ohio.
Carter won by eight shots at Harbor Springs and by 10 shots at Mill Creek, firing a sizzling 6-under 63 in the second round at Mill Creek’s South Course.
After opening with a 2-under 69 at the Atlanta Athletic Club’s Riverside Course, Carter unfurled a brutally efficient 4-under 67 in Tuesday’s second round. She made birdies at the first, fourth, 13th and 17th holes with nary a bogey on the card.
Four players are sitting in a tie for second place, a shot behind Carter at 4-under 137, including the Hong Kong duo of Arianna Lau and Sophie Han, Rinka Nakayama of Japan and Xingtong Chen of Singapore.
Lau, No. 48 in the Women’s WAGR and who will join the program at reigning national champion Northwestern later this summer, added a 3-under 68 in Tuesday’s second round to her opening-round 69. Han added 1-under 70 Tuesday after opening with a 3-under 67.
Nagayama had grabbed the lead with a 5-under 66 in Monday’s opening round before matching par in Tuesday’s second round. Chen added a 1-under 70 in Tuesday’s second round to her opening round of 4-under 67.
Aphrodite Deng, the native of Canada whose family relocated to Short Hills, N.J., will make the match-play bracket after posting a second straight 1-over 72 for a 2-over 144 total.
Deng, No. 38 in the Women’s WAGR, first appeared on my radar when she blitzed the field to win the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Junior Girls’ Championship as a 13-year-old two summers ago at the Moorestown Field Club.
Deng rolled to a six-shot victory in the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley, one of junior golf’s most coveted prizes, in March in Graniteville, S.C.
Deng made back-to-back birdies at the fourth and fifth holes to get her second round off to a good start Tuesday. A double bogey at the seventh hole dropped her back to even-par for the round, but she was solid the rest of the way with 10 pars around a bogey at 16.
Avery McCrery, a native of Wilmington, Del., never got it going at the Atlanta Athletic Club as she added a 5-over 76 Tuesday to her opening-round 75 for a 9-over 151 total.
McCrery will defend her title in the Girls Junior PGA Championship in a couple of weeks at the Birck Boilermaker Golf Complex at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. McCrery is part of a strong incoming class at Atlantic Coast Conference power Duke that also includes Malixi.
It was a tough couple of days for the rest of the local contingent at the Atlanta Athletic Club.
Rhianna Gooneratne, the 2023 PIAA Class AAA champion as a junior at Plymouth-Whitemarsh, improved from an opening-round 81 with a 6-over 77 in Tuesday’s second round for a 158 total.
Pretty sure Gooneratne will join Roberts and McCrery in the field for the Girls Junior PGA Championship at Purdue in a couple of weeks and Gooneratne has also earned a spot in the field for the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Bandon Dunes.
I’m certain Patty Post, the director of both the men’s and women’s golf programs at Delaware, is loving seeing Gooneratne, her prize recruit, getting all these competitive reps in national tournaments this summer.
Archmere Academy junior Hannah Webb, winner of the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association individual crown at the St. Anne’s Golf Links in Middletown, Del. in the spring, was a shot behind Gooneratne with a 159 total after adding a 79 in Tuesday’s second round to her opening-round 80. Webb is a Woolwich, N.J. resident.
Cardinal O’Hara sophomore Alaina Carson struggled with an 84 in Tuesday’s second round after opening with a 6-over 77 for a 161 total.
Carson, who finished in a tie for third place in the PIAA Class AAA Championship as a freshman last fall, had earned her place in the U.S. Girls’ Junior with an impressive victory in last month’s Pennsylvania Junior Girls’ Championship at Lebanon Country Club.
For all of the local girls, Roberts, Gooneratne, Webb and Carson, there are only positives from competing in a USGA championship. They all will be better players for the experience in ways they might not yet totally understand.
It might not show up in their golf swings necessarily, but moreso in their mental approach to the game. And there’s nothing quite like teeing it up in a USGA championship. It is an atmosphere you can’t wait to experience again.
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