The 20-year-old Oregon junior is the undisputed face of women's amateur golf. Born in New York, trained early at the Joffrey Ballet School, she became No. 1 in the WAGR in July 2025 and has not relinquished the position. The McCormack Medal came the same summer. Her 2025-26 college season has been outstanding: five career wins, a 69.60 scoring average, par-or-better in 15 of 18 rounds. She missed the cut at the 2024 ANWA and finished T-7 in 2025 while leading the field at one point in the final round. She carries two major championship exemptions into a year where everything points toward Augusta National as the turning point.

Her mother is Greek. In Greek, asterisk means "little star." In 2024 she became the first player in USGA history to reach three championship final matches in the same year — the Women's Amateur Four-Ball (won), U.S. Girls' Junior (runner-up), and U.S. Women's Amateur (runner-up). In the 2025 ANWA final, she eagled the par-4 first hole at Augusta National, shot 68, and lost by one stroke. As of March 2026 she has broken into the World Top 10. She is 17 years old. One stroke. She knows it.

This is Ganne's sixth ANWA start — almost certainly her last as an amateur. Four Drive, Chip & Putt national finals, five ANWA starts, and now a sixth. She opened the 2025 ANWA with the all-time record 63 at Champions Retreat — two better than former Stanford teammate Rose Zhang. She returned to win the 2025 U.S. Women's Amateur for her signature title. Healthy after a hip injury that cost her the summer of 2025, she arrives at peak form. The entire arc of her amateur career lives inside this week.

Ranked seventh in the world, Marin is the reigning 2025 NCAA Individual Champion and recently won the 2025 Women's Amateur Latin America (WALA) in a dramatic three-hole playoff — the first Colombian to own that title. Her short game is among the sharpest in the field and her ability to close under pressure has been tested repeatedly. The ANWA's 54-hole format, rewarding patience and mental fortitude above all, suits her profile well.

Galitsky holds one of the most relevant distinctions in this field: she shot a 66 in the 2025 ANWA final round at Augusta National — the lowest score ever recorded in a championship final round on those grounds. Ranked No. 8 in the world, the Thai star also claimed the 2023 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship. The player who holds Augusta National's final-round record returns knowing exactly what this course can yield. Players who can shoot 66 at Augusta National on a championship Saturday don't stay outside the trophy conversation for long.

In 2024, Malixi became only the second player in history to win both the U.S. Girls' Junior and the U.S. Women's Amateur in the same calendar year, defeating Asterisk Talley in both finals. She withdrew from the 2025 ANWA with a back injury. In January 2026 she shot a course-record 63 at Duke to win the Sea Best Intercollegiate as a freshman. Healthy, motivated, competing at Augusta National for the first time with major championship DNA already on the résumé. The most dangerous player no one has seen at Augusta before.

Kajitani was a teenager when she won in 2021, becoming the first international champion and the first winner from Japan at Augusta National in any tournament. Eight days later, Hideki Matsuyama won the Masters — Japan's week in April. She won in a playoff over Emilia Migliaccio. No player has won the ANWA more than once — but Kajitani's relationship with this course is unlike anyone else in this field. She's been here. She knows how Saturday feels. She's the most experienced player in the draw by the only measure that matters at Augusta National.

Davis was 16 when she shot a final-round 69 to become the ANWA's youngest-ever champion in 2022. Now a junior at Auburn, she has set program records with rounds of 64 and finished T-11 at the 2025 ANWA. She and Kajitani are the only players in this field who know what it feels like to stand in Amen Corner holding the ANWA trophy. That psychological edge is real. Augusta National in April, with the Masters a week away, is unlike anywhere else in golf. Davis has felt it before and walked away a champion.