The Hilton Grand Vacations Annika Invitational, presented by Rolex, has become one of the most important stops on the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) circuit for girls each January at Eagle Creek Golf & Country Club in Orlando, Fla.
Natalie Yen of West Linn, Ore. outdueled Thanana Kotchasanmanee of Thailand in Tuesday’s final round to claim a three-shot victory with a sparkling 54-hole total of 13-under-par 206 over the par-73 Eagle Creek layout.
Yen, who plans to join the program at Southeastern Conference power Texas A&M in the summer of 2025, had opened with a 6-under 67 and, after a 3-under 70 in Monday’s second round, she trailed Kotchasanmanee by a shot going into Tuesday’s final round.
Yen and Kotchasanmanee were locked in a tight battle, tied at 11-under for the championship halfway through the round. But Yen made back-to-back birdies on the 10th and 11th holes to take control of the tournament.
Yen made a bogey at the 12th hole, but a birdie at 16 sealed the deal as she closed with a 4-under 69.
Yen was presented the winner’s trophy from the tournament’s namesake, World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam her ownself, just another touch that makes this event such a powerful draw for the top junior players.
“It means a lot,” Yen told the AJGA website. “Annika has been an inspiration to a lot of us and to be able to play in this event, let alone win it, is such an honor and I look forward to coming back next year and having another round at the course.”
The win also earns Yen a spot in the field for this week’s season opener on the LPGA Tour, the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions at nearby Lake Nona Golf & Country Club. It will be the second time Yen has played alongside the LPGA pros as she earned a spot in The Ascendant LPGA benefitting Volunteers of America at the Old American Golf Club in The Colony, Texas outside of Dallas by winning the Kathy Whitworth Invitational last summer.
The victory also gives Yen a start in an event this spring on the Epson Tour, the LPGA’s developmental circuit.
Kotchasanmanee, who plans to join the program at Ivy League power Princeton in the summer of 2025, struggled a little down the stretch, finishing up with a 1-over 74 to finish in a tie for second place with Siuue Wu of Reunion, Fla. via Hong Kong at 10-under 209, three shots behind Yen.
Kotchasanmanee got off to a great start, adding a 6-under 67 in Monday’s second round to her opening round of 5-under 68, to take her one-shot lead into the final round. Wu opened with a 1-under 72 and added a 2-under 71 in the second round before surging up the leaderboard in the final round with a sizzling 7-under 66 that matched the low round of the week.
Kotchasanmanee qualified for the match-play brackets in both the U.S. Girls’ Junior Amateur at the Air Force Academy Eisenhower Golf Club’s Blue Course in Colorado Springs, Colo. and the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles last summer.
Kotchasanmanee took the lead into the final round of the Citrus Golf Trail Ladies Invitational, a stop on the unofficial Orange Blossom Tour that wrapped up on New Year’s Eve at the Sun ’n Lake Golf & Country Club’s Deer Run Course in Sebring, Fla., but fell back a little in the final round and settled for a third-place finish.
Kotchasanmanee was one of seven players who finished in the top 10 in the Annika Invitational (there was a seven-way tied for ninth place, so there were 15 top-10 finishers) that earned spots in the match-place bracket in last summer’s U.S. Girls’ Junior.
Wu, who plans to join the program at SEC power Georgia at the end of this summer, was coming off a fourth-place finish in another stop on the Orange Blossom Tour, the South Atlantic Women’s Amateur Championship – The Sally for short – at Oceanside Country Club in Ormond Beach, Fla.
Yen wasn’t the only Texas A&M recruit who had a strong showing at Eagle Creek as Canadian Vanessa Borovilos, who will join the Aggies at the end of this summer, finished in a tie for fourth place in the Annika Invitational with another Canadian, Vanessa Zhang, each landing on 8-under 211.
Borovilos reached the second round of match play in last summer’s U.S. Girls’ Junior at the Air Force Academy before being ousted by the eventual winner, Kiara Romero of San Jose, Calif. Borovilos got herself in contention at Eagle Creek when she opened with a 5-under 68. She matched par in Monday’s second round with a 73 before closing with a 3-under 70.
Like Kotchasanmanee, Zhang is Ivy League-bound as she will join the program at Harvard at the end of this summer. Zhang was steady at Eagle Creek, sandwiching a 2-under 71 in Monday’s second round with a pair of 3-under 70s.
Zhang reached the second round of match play in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Amateur at Bel-Air.
A couple of players coming off strong showings in Orange Blossom Tour events, Scarlett Schremmer of Birmingham, Ala., the runnerup in last week’s Jones/Doherty Women’s Amateur Championship at Coral Ridge Country Club in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Sofia Cherif Essakali, the Moroccan phenom who surged past Kotchasanmanee in the final round to capture the title in the Citrus Golf Trail Ladies Invitational, finished in a tie for sixth place in the Annika Invitational, each ending up at 7-under 212.
Schremmer, a Class of 2025 entry, matched par in the opening round at Eagle Creek with a 73, put up a sparkling 5-under 68 in Monday’s second round and closed with a 2-under 71. Schremmer was the qualifying medalist in the Jones/Doherty, a match-play event, and lost in the final to Maisie Filler, a talented senior at Florida.
Cherif Essakali, a Class of ’27 competitor at age 14, got off to a great start at Eagle Creek with a 5-under 68 in the opening round, struggled a little in Monday’s second round with a 2-over 75 and finished strong with a 4-under 69. The kid can obviously play a little.
Another Class of ’27 entry, Eliana Saga of Stevenson Ranch, Fla., finished alone in eighth place, a shot behind Schremmer and Cherif Essakali with a 6-under 213 total. After opening with a 2-under 71, Saga signed for a 1-under 72 in the second round before finishing up with her best round of the week, a 3-under 70.
Heading the group of seven players that rounded out the top 10 by finishing in a tie for ninth place at 5-under 214 was Alice Ziyi Zhao, another Class of ’27 entry who rose to official phenom status when, at age 13, she earned co-medalist honors in qualifying for match play in the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash. two summers ago. Ziyi Shao of Irvine, Calif. via China reached the second round of the U.S. Girls’ Junior at the Air Force Academy last summer.
Ziyi Shao made a strong opening statement at Eagle Creek when she matched the low round of the tournament with a sizzling 7-under 66 to grab the lead. Ziyi Shao cooled off with a 4-over 77 in Monday’s second round before closing with a solid 3-under 70.
Four other players who earned spots in the match-play bracket in last summer’s U.S. Girls’ Junior at the Air Force Academy were in the group tied at 5-under, including Madison Messimer of Myrtle Beach, S.C., Yujie Liu of Encinitas, Calif. via China, Anna Fang of San Diego, Calif. and Asterisk Talley of Chowchilla, Calif.
Messimer, who plans to join the program at Tennessee of the SEC in the summer of 2025, added a 4-under 69 in Monday’s second to her opening-round 71 before finishing up with a 1-over 74. Messimer reached the second round in last summer’s U.S. Girls’ Junior.
Liu, as a Class of ’28 competitor the youngest of the youngsters in the top-10 at Eagle Creek, added a 4-under 69 in Monday’s second round to her opening-round 72 before matching par in the final round with a 73.
Fang, a Class of ’27 entry, matched Liu’s splits, adding a 4-under 69 in Monday’s second round to an opening-round 72 before matching par in the final round with a 73.
Talley, another Class of ’27 performer, was an impressive winner of last summer’s Rolex Girls Junior Championship at The Golf Club of Briar’s Creek in John’s Island, S.C. At Eagle Creek. Talley sandwiched a 1-over 74 in Monday’s second round with a pair of 3-under 70s.
Rounding out the sevensome tied for ninth place were a pair of Class of ’26 competitors in South African Gia Raad and Sophia Lin of Taiwan.
Raad, winner of last summer’s English Girls’ Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship at The Caversham, opened with a solid 4-under 69 at Eagle Creek, matched par in the second round with a 73 and closed with a 1-under 72.
Lin was solid at Eagle Creek, sandwiching a 1-under 72 in Monday’s second round with a pair of 2-under 71s.
A couple of Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Junior Girls champions, Wilmington Country Club’s Avery McCrery, a junior at Tower Hill School, and Aphrodite Deng, a Canadian who is based in Short Hills, N.J., finished a shot apart in the Annika Invitational.
The two met in an opening-round match in last summer’s U.S. Girls’ Junior at the Air Force Academy with Deng, winner of the WGAP Junior Girls last summer at the Moorestown Field Club, defeating McCrery, winner of the WGAP Junior Girls in the pandemic summer of 2020 at Sandy Run Country Club, 2 and 1.
Deng then put together a pretty strong effort in falling to Anna Davis, the 2022 Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship winner and one of the top amateur players in the world, in the second round.
McCrery, the reigning scholastic girls individual champion in Delaware, was a shot better than Deng at Eagle Creek as she sandwiched a 3-under 70 in Monday’s second round with a pair of 2-over 75s to finish in a tie for 34th place with a 1-over 220 total.
McCrery plans to join the program at Atlantic Coast Conference power Duke at the end of the summer of 2025.
There is something of a Delaware pipeline at Duke. Phoebe Brinker, an Archmere Academy product, is finishing up an outstanding career this spring with the Blue Devils, including a runaway victory in the individual chase in the ACC Championship in 2022 at The Reserve Club of Pawleys Island on Pawleys Island, S.C.
Rylie Heflin, a junior at Duke, preceded McCrery as a standout at Tower Hill. Heflin resides just over the Delaware border in Avondale, Chester County and captured the Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur crown last summer at Sunnehanna Country Club in Johnstown.
Deng, another member of that really talented Class of ’27, closed with a solid 1-under 72 at Eagle Creek after she struggled a little in the first two rounds, adding a 1-over 74 in Monday’s second round to her opening-round 75. It added up to a 2-over 221 total that left her in the group tied for 41st place.
Deng stole the show with a really impressive five-shot victory in the AJGA’s marquee event, the 46th Rolex Tournament of Champions, which wrapped up the day before Thanksgiving at TPC San Antonio’s Canyons Course in Texas. There seems to be no limit to the possibilities for Deng in 2024.
No comments:
Post a Comment