NOW PLAYING: The 122nd U.S. Women's Amateur

August 8, 2022 | by Jim Young of AmateurGolf.com

A total of 156 competitors from 14 countries will compete for the Robert Cox Trophy beginning on Monday at Chambers Bay

Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash. will be the site for the 122nd playing of the U.S. Women's Amateur, which gets underway on Monday with the first round of stroke play competition.

A total of 156 competitors from 14 countries will compete for the Robert Cox Trophy, won last year by Jensen Castle at Westchester Country Club in Rye, NY.

Castle will be at Chambers Bay to defend her title, along with six of her Curtis Cup teammates, including Amari Avery, Megha Ganne, Emilia Migliaccio, Rachel Heck, Rachel Kuehn and Latanna Stone.

Rachel Heck

The top players in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking® as of Aug. 3 who will be in Chambers Bay include Heck (No. 3), 2021 ANWA champion Tsubasa Kajitani (No. 6) of Japan, Migliaccio (No. 9), Avery (No. 11), Texas Longhorn Bohyun Park (No. 23), Ganne (No. 27) and Brooke Seay (No. 32). Seay, a member of Stanford's national championship team, is playing in her seventh U.S. Women’s Amateur and is a veteran of 16 USGA championships.

PAIRINGS and TEE TIMES

Notable players who are not in the field include two-time USGA champion and NCAA individual title holder Rose Zhang of Stanford and LSU's Ingrid Lindblad, the top two female amateurs in the world, along with ANWA champion Anna Davis, who are all competing in the AIG Open in Scotland this weekend.

The last two U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur champions -- Blakesly Brock (2021) and Ina Kim-Schaad (2019) -- are also in the field. Kim-Schaad, 38, who took 11 years off of competition before returning to the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am in 2017, was one of five players who qualified at Nashawtuc Country Club in Concord, Mass.

The top three players in the American Junior Golf Association's rankings are in the field, including top-ranked Leigh Chien, who has verbally committed to Stanford, Yana Wilson, who won the U.S. Girls' Junior Championship last month at The Club at Olde Stone, Bowling Green, Ky. and 14-year-old Gianna Clemente, who finished runner-up to Wilson at the U.S. Girls' Junior. Illinois, Mississippi State, North Texas, Northwestern, Stanford, UCLA and USC share campus bragging rights with three players each in the field.

The average age of the field is 19.96 years of age, with Anna Fang, 13, of San Diego, Calif. and Alice Ziyi Zhao, 13, of Irvine, Calif. being the youngest competitors. At the same time, 60-year-olds Martha Leach of Hebron, Ky. and Ellen Port of St. Louis, Mo. have the distinction of being the oldest players in the field.

Both Leach and Port will be arriving at Chambers Bay from Anchorage, Alaska, where they competed in the U.S. Senior Women's Amateur. This will be Port's 24th appearance in the U.S. Women's Amateur while Leach will be making her 16th start.

The low 64 scorers after 36 holes of stroke play will advance to match play. If necessary, a playoff will be conducted to trim the draw to exactly 64 competitors.

Congratulations to @kaleiya9 who qualified for the @USGA Women’s Amateur Championship today. She will return to @ChambersBayGolf in Washington where she played in April at the Chambers Bay Invitational. 💙🧡🌊#WavesUp #USWomensAm pic.twitter.com/JSM0UMUvDl
— Pepperdine Women's Golf (@WavesGolf) July 8, 2022

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Chambers Bay Joins Elite Company

The U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship will be the fourth USGA championship conducted at Chambers Bay. The course previously hosted the 2010 U.S. Amateur, won by Peter Uihlein, the 2015 U.S. Open, won by Jordan Spieth, and last year's U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, won by Kiko Francisco Coelho and Leopoldo Herrera III.

Chambers Bay will become the 15th course (and first municipal course) to host the three original USGA championships (U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur; U.S. Women's Amateur) and just the third course open to the public to achieve this distinction, joining resorts Pebble Beach and Pinehurst.

“Chambers Bay has become an extremely special place to the USGA, and we are ecstatic that on the heels of this week’s championship we can assure that our relationship with Pierce County and the golf course continues,” said John Bodenhamer, senior managing director, Championships. “The U.S. Women’s Amateur and Chambers Bay are sure to produce a memorable week, fitting of both the championship’s stature and the spectacular setting.”

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A Look Back at Last Year

Jensen Castle, 20, of West Columbia, S.C., produced one of the most memorable runs in USGA championship history, becoming just the third No. 63 seed to win a national championship since seeding began in the mid-1980s. Castle, a rising junior at the University of Kentucky, defeated University of Arizona All-American Yu-Chiang (Vivian) Hou, of Chinese Taipei, 2 and 1, in the 36-hole final at Westchester Country Club in Rye, N.Y. Castle survived a 12-for-2 playoff just to qualify for match play and then won six matches, including a 19-hole semifinal thriller over world No. 2 Rachel Heck, to join Clay Ogden and Steven Fox as 63 seeds to win USGA titles.

Related: A Quick Nine With Jensen Castle

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Television Schedule

Wednesday, Aug. 10: 6 p.m.-9 p.m. EDT (Golf Channel, Round of 64)
Thursday, Aug. 11: 7 p.m.-10 p.m. EDT (Golf Channel, Round of 16)
Friday, Aug. 12: 7 p.m.-10 p.m. EDT (Golf Channel, Quarterfinals)
Saturday, Aug. 13: 3 p.m.-6 p.m. EDT (Golf Channel, Semifinals)
Sunday, Aug. 14: 7 p.m.-10 p.m. EDT (Golf Channel, Championship Match, Afternoon 18)

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History

The U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship marks the beginning of women’s competitive golf in this country. Along with the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Open, the Women’s Amateur was one of the USGA’s first three championships.

The first Women’s Amateur Championship was arranged on short notice one month after the 1895 Amateur and Open Championships.

The following small item appeared in the social column of a New York newspaper shortly after the completion of play: “Thirteen ladies played 18 holes of golf at the Meadow Brook Club, in Hempstead, recently. Mrs. Charles S. Brown, whose husband plays at the Shinnecock Hills Club, in Southampton, L.I., made the best score and thus won the United States championship for lady golfers.”

Although a stroke-play format was selected for the first championship, the Women’s Amateur became a match-play competition in 1896, and has remained so ever since.

Many U.S. Women's Amateur champions have gone on to success in professional golf, including five-time champion JoAnne Gunderson Carner, whose record of eight USGA titles is eclipsed only by Bob Jones and Tiger Woods (nine). Other notable champions include Beth Daniel, Juli Inkster, Danielle Kang, Lydia Ko, Kelli Kuehne, Catherine Lacoste, Anne Sander, Pearl Sinn, Louise Suggs, Carol Semple Thompson and Babe Didrikson Zaharias.

The USGA contributed to this report.

Results: U.S. Women's Amateur

Place	Player	Location	Pts
Win	Saki Baba	, Japan	2000
Runner-up	Monet Chun	, Canada	1500
Semifinals	Annabel Wilson	, Northern Ireland	1000
Semifinals	Bailey Shoemaker	Dade City, FL	1000
Quarterfinals	Catherine Rao	Camarillo, CA	700

View full results for U.S. Women's Amateur

About the U.S. Women's Amateur

NOW PLAYING: The 122nd U.S. Women's Amateur

The U.S. Women's Amateur, the third oldest of the USGA championships, was first played in 1895 at Meadowbrook Club in Hempstead, N.Y. The event is open to any female amateur who has a USGA Handicap Index not exceeding 2.4. The Women's Amateur is one ...