North & South Women’s Amateur: Kuehn advances to Round of 16

July 16, 2020 | by Brayden Conover of AmateurGolf.com

Keith Silva (L) and Rachel Kuehn (Pinehurst photo)

Rachel Kuehn and legendary looper Keith Silva continue their run towards a championship at Pinehurst

Wake Forest’s Rachel Kuehn is making a run with arguably the best caddie at Pinehurst. The Demon Deacon sophomore is turning heads with 30-year Pinehurst veteran caddie Keith Silva. The duo took down Bentley Cotton 2 up in the opening round of match play on Thursday. A feat that neither claims they did alone. “Everybody’s telling me I’ve got the best caddie,” Kuehn told Pinehurst’s Alex Podlogar. “I’ve only known Keith for four days, and already I trust him with everything. Just give me the number and the line, and I’ll try to do that. If I miss, it’s my fault, not his.” Having not met until this week, Silva had high hopes for the Wake Forest star. “I knew what kind of player I had just from the two practice rounds on No. 2 and No. 4,” Silva said. “A few members came up to me and asked if I had a good player. I told them, ‘If we don’t make it to match play, I’m going to pack it up.’” At 70-years old, no one would blame Silva for hanging up his bib. However, his success with amateurs over the past 11-months would make people wonder ‘Why retire now?’. On the bag for William Holcomb’s semifinal run at last August’s U.S. Amateur and the North & South Amateur Championship runner-up finish just a couple weeks ago gave Silva a rejuvenated outlook. “Really, they’re all just making me look good,” Silva quipped. Kuehn has a tendency to make anyone looping for her look good. As one of the top-ranked juniors in the 2019 class, she made five appearances in her COVID-19 shortened freshman season notching top-20 finishes in each event and taking home the ANNIKA Intercollegiate title. As the 10-seed, Kuehn will play 26-seed Becca DiNunzio who bested junior golf star Megha Ganne 3 & 2 on Thursday. “Let’s play 36 tomorrow, OK, kid?” Silva told Kuehn as they walked off the 18th at No. 2. Medalist Ivy Shepherd kept rolling along with a 2 & 1 win over Annika Borrelli to set up a match with Duke star Gina Kim in the Round of 16. Kuehn’s teammate and top-ranked female in the AmateurGolf.com rankings, Emilia Migliaccio advanced 3 & 2 over Lei Ye. Auburn’s hot-handed Megan Schofill, on the heels of her 10-stroke comeback at the Florida Women’s Amateur advanced 1-up over Round 1 co-leader, Mikayla Bardwell. Play resumes at 7:00 am ET as the field will be cut from 16 to four by the end of Friday.

Results: North & South Women's Amateur

Place	Player	Location	Pts
Win	Rachel Kuehn	Asheville, NC	1200
Runner-up	Allisen Corpuz	Honolulu, HI	900
Semifinals	Ivy Shepherd	Peachtree City, GA	700
Semifinals	Haylin Harris	Carmel, IN	700
Quarterfinals	Megan Schofill	Monticello, FL	500

View full results for North & South Women's Amateur

About the North & South Women's Amateur

North & South Women’s Amateur: Kuehn advances to Round of 16

The Women's North & South has drawn the top amateur women from around the country. Three rounds of stroke play followed by four rounds of match play will determine the Champion. The 96 player field will be cut to a 16 player match play field and meda...