Zhang denies Ruffels' repeat bid by winning on 38th hole of a U.S. Women's Amateur thriller at Woodmont

    The first time I became aware of Rose Zhang, she was 14-years old and shooting 20-under par to win the 2017 Girls Junior PGA Championship at the Country Club of St. Albans’ Lewis & Clark Course in St. Albans, Mo.

   She shot 20-under the following year in the Girls Junior PGA Championship at the Kearney Hill Golf Links in Lexington, Ky., but that was only good enough for second place as that was the summer of Yealimi Noh, who would go on to capture the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at the Poppy Hills Golf Course on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula.

   But the 14-year-old who ran roughshod over that field at St. Albans has never gone away. Somehow, she keeps getting better. The Rose Zhang that was holding one of the most iconic trophies in sports, the Robert Cox Trophy, is still only 17, but as of Sunday afternoon she is a U.S. Women’s Amateur champion after outlasting defending champion Gabriela Ruffels of Australia in a terrific 38-hole final at Westmont Country Club in Rockville, Md.

   I’m sure the rest of the college world will be thrilled to know that Zhang won’t arrive to bolster the powerhouse Stanford program until late next summer – hopefully the coronavirus, while undoubtedly still hanging around, will be somewhat neutralized by then.

   Zhang will be joining the qualifying medalist from Woodmont, Rachel Heck of Memphis, Tenn., whom Zhang edged, 1-up, in a tremendous round-of-16 set of matches Friday afternoon, when Zhang, a SoCal gal from Irvine, finally gets to northern California.

   How good will Stanford be if that pair retains their amateur status for a couple of years? Wouldn’t mind seeing them wearing the Red, White & Blue at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course for a 2022 date with Great Britain & Ireland in the Curtis Cup Match.

   In the now, though, with the pandemic still raging, Zhang, No. 9 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Rnking (WAGR), and Ruffels, No. 16 in the Women’s WAGR, put on a terrific show. Ruffels, so tough in match play all week at Woodmont, put up a huge fight in trying to become the first repeat U.S. Women’s Amateur champion since Danielle Kang did it in 2010 and 2011.

   It was the first United States Golf Association championship of 2020 due to the pandemic and it was a a reminder of everything that’s so great about USGA championships.

   In Sunday’s final, neither player ever had more than a 2-up lead. Zhang was 2-down early, but wins at the fifth, sixth, ninth and 12^th holes gave her a 2-up advantage. Ruffels won the 18^th hole to cut her deficit to 1-down going to the lunch break.

   Each player took turns taking 1-up leads and Ruffels, a Southern California senior, tied the match by winning the 25^th hole. They halved the next four, Zhang won the 30^th hole with a par, but Ruffels got it right back by taking the 31^st hole with a birdie.

   Zhang drove it poorly at Woodmont’s par-4 18^th hole, the 36^th of the match. She tried to punch a hybrid under a tree and through the thick rough, but didn’t quite make it out. But she responded with a tremendous shot from 95 yards away that finished so close to the hole that Ruffels gave it to her for a hard-earned par.

   Still, Ruffels had a 25-footer for birdie, a chance to repeat what she did a year ago on the 36^th hole at Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Miss. She rolled in a tricky 10-footer for birdie then to defeat Stanford standout Albane Valenzuela of Switzerland, 1-up.

   But Ruffels left this birdie try three feet short and Zhang graciously conceded the putt. Two holes later, a three-footer for par by Ruffels lipped out cruelly and Zhang would win the title with a par.

   "Winning the U.S. Women's Amateur means the world to me," Zhang told the USGA website.  "To have my name on this trophy with the best players of all time is life-changing for me. It's a dream come true."

   As I watched the tournament unfold all week, I couldn’t help but think about what a tremendous college postseason the pandemic cost us.

   How tough would Southern Cal have been? Ruffels and Alyaa Abdulghany, a senior from Malaysia and No. 34 in the Women’s WAGR, gave the Trojans two of the four semifinalists at Woodmont.

   Zhang edged Abdulghany, 2 and 1, to punch her ticket into the final while Ruffels came from behind to beat Valery Plata, a junior at Michigan State from Colombia, 2 and 1, in the other semifinal.

   Plata, by the way, had to knock off her Michigan State classmate Haylin Harris, a junior from Carmel, Ind., 3 and 1, to get out of the first round of match play. I’m guessing the Spartans could have made some noise in the postseason.

   How tough would Auburn have been? The Tigers’ Megan Schofill, a sophomore from Monticello, Fla. and No. 25 in the Women’s WAGR, fell in an epic 22-hole match in the round of 16 to Wake Forest’s Emilia Migliaccio, a senior from Cary, N.C. and No. 4 in the Women’s WAGR.

   After Scholfill won the seventh hole with a par to even the match, the pair proceeded to halve the next 14 holes before Migliaccio finally won it on the 22^nd hole.

   Auburn also had a quarterfinalist in Kaleigh Telfer, a senior from South Africa and No. 44 in the Women’s WAGR. Telfer took the eventual champion to the 18^th hole before Zhang pulled out a 2-up victory.

   And well, we knew Wake Forest, the runnerup to Atlantic Coast Conference rival Duke in the 2019 NCAA Championship, was going to be tough in the 2020 postseason.

   Migliaccio had Ruffels 1-down with three holes to play in the quarterfinals before Ruffels won the 16^th and 18^th holes with birdies to pull out a 1-up victory.

   And Wake Forest sophomore Rachel Kuehn of Asheville, N.C. capped a terrific summer by reaching the round of 16 at Woodmont before Telfer took her out with a 2 and 1 decision.

   When I last posted on the U.S. Women’s Amateur, Phoebe Brinker, the recent Archmere Academy graduate who is headed for Duke, had finished in a tie for second place in qualifying with Migliaccio and Plata, two shots behind Heck.

   When Jennifer Cleary won the American Junior Golf Association’s Imperial Headwear Junior Classic at DuPont Country Club last week, I recounted the remarkable performance by her and Brinker when a trio of Wilmington teens teamed up to give Delaware a runnerup finish in the final USGA Women’s State Team Championship in 2017.

   While Cleary was closing out her junior career with a nice AJGA victory, Brinker was pulling out a 2 and 1 victory over Vanderbilt’s Auston Kim, a junior from St. Augustine, Fla., in the opening round of match play at Woodmont.

   Kim ripped off wins at the ninth, 10^th and 11^th holes to take a 1-up lead, but Brinker answered by taking the 13^th, 15^th and 16^th holes to turn the match in her favor.

   Brinker was knocked out in the second round Friday morning as Oregon State’s Ellie Slama, a senior from Salem, Ore., claimed a 3 and 2 victory. Slama took Abdulghany to the 18^th hole before Abdulghany pulled out a 2-up decision in Friday afternoon’s round of 16.

   Like Cleary, Brinker has had a tremendous career as a junior player. In many ways, Brinker proved at Woodmont that she’s already reached the next level.

   I found a Pennsylvanian in the match-play bracket whom I missed in qualifying. Marissa Kirkwood, who completed her college career at Kent State this year, was a three-time PIAA Class AA qualifier at Neshanock, finishing in third place as a senior in 2015.

   Kirkwood reached the second round at Woodmont with a 4 and 3 victory over Reagan Zibiliski, a junior standout from Springfield, Mo. who teed it up in last year’s U.S. Women’s Open at the Country Club of Charleston at age 14.

   Kirkwood was taken out in the second round by Abdulghany, who claimed a 4 and 2 decision.

   Megha Ganne was the teen sensation of the 2019 U.S. Women’s Amateur, the Holmdel, N.J. resident reaching the semifinals at Old Waverly. Ganne’s bid ended early this year as she fell to the 2019 U.S. Girls’ Junior champion, Lei Ye of China, 1-up, in the opening round of match play.

   By the way, Ye’s caddy in her victory in that U.S. Girls’ Junior final at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wis.? That would be Rose Zhang, who recounted the experience of being on the bag with Ye as something she leaned on during Sunday’s U.S. Women’s Amateur final at Woodmont.