11th U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball — Match Play Set
Charleston, S.C.
What you need to know — stroke play complete
- Lee & Oh set a championship record with their three-stroke medalist margin, the largest in event history. Their 12-under 132 is just four shy of the all-time 36-hole scoring record.
- The Stanford signees were bogey-free across 36 holes — the entire stroke-play portion played without a single dropped shot.
- Six of 13 exempt sides missed the cut, including Sydney Hackett/Melanie Walker, Anya Mathur/Ailis Tribolet, the Tilma sisters, the Johnson sisters, Olivia Duan/Catherine Rao, Ryann Honea/Emma Kaiser Bunch, and Lara Tennant/Ellen Port.
- The cut at 3-under 141 is tied for the second-lowest cutline in championship history, behind only 139 at Oak Hills in 2024.
- 2025 runners-up Singh/Yun shot a Sunday 66 to climb into match play as the No. 17 seed — tied for the day’s low round.
- 32 sides advanced with no playoff required. Match play begins Monday at 9 AM EDT and concludes Wednesday with the 18-hole final.
Round 2: Lee & Oh Run Away With Medalist Honors
Sunny skies replaced Saturday’s rain at Daniel Island Club, and the leaderboard responded. Stanford signees Jude Lee (Walnut, Calif.) and Nikki Oh (Torrance, Calif.) backed up their Saturday 66 with a second consecutive 6-under 66 to take medalist honors at 12-under 132 — three strokes clear of the field, the largest medalist margin in U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball history.
More striking than the margin: the U.S. National Junior Team duo went bogey-free across the entire 36-hole stroke-play portion. Their final 132 sits just four shots off the championship’s all-time 36-hole scoring record.
“Especially since I’ve roomed with her so many times, she’s like a sister to me and I know her so well. We don’t even have to communicate to know what each other is thinking. We just trust each other. We have a silence that’s super comfortable... So when we’re just walking across a fairway like 50 yards from each other, we know exactly what to do.”— Jude Lee on her partnership with Nikki Oh
First-round co-leaders Kiley Reisner (Northridge, Calif.) and Summer Schafer (San Diego, Calif.) finished alone in second at 9-under 135 after a 3-under 69. The Wyoming and Point Loma Nazarene freshmen made just one bogey across all 36 holes, an early hiccup at the par-4 second on Sunday before steadying into the No. 2 seed.
Three sides bunched together at 8-under 136 to share the No. 3 seeding tier. Cousins Elle Nachmann and Juno Taino held on after a double-bogey start to the round, recovering with multiple birdies down the stretch for a 70. Morgan Ellison (Peachtree City, Ga.) and Katie Scheck (Ooltewah, Tenn.) shot 67 to climb into the same group, as did Southern California teens Annika Raja (15) and Sabrina Sun (16), one of the youngest sides in the field.
Sunday’s low round of 6-under 66 was matched by four different sides — including 2025 runners-up Athena Singh and Keira Yun, who climbed from outside the top 25 into the No. 17 seed for match play. Kandice Chuang and Nina Xu (Los Angeles), Haley Davis and Katelyn Huber, and Carly Marshall and Ava Osborne also posted 66s.
The Cut: Six Exempt Sides Go Home
The 3-under 141 cutline ties for the second-lowest in the championship’s 11-year history. Only 2024’s 139 at Oak Hills was deeper. The combined under-par total for sides making this year’s cut was 184 under, more than triple last year’s 57-under figure — a reflection of how soft the second-round scoring conditions were.
The most striking outcome: nearly half the credentialed exempt field is gone. Six of the 13 exempt sides failed to advance, including 2024 semifinalists Sydney Hackett and Melanie Walker, three sister sides (Tilma, Johnson, plus the qualifying duos), 2025 quarterfinalists Anya Mathur and Ailis Tribolet, and the wildcard veteran pairing of Lara Tennant and Ellen Port. The Lara Tennant–Ellen Port storyline that loomed largest in the preview ended without a match-play appearance.
36-Hole Final Leaderboard — Top of Field
| Pos | Side | R1 | R2 | Total | To Par |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jude Lee / Nikki Oh | 66 | 66 | 132 | −12 |
| 2 | Kiley Reisner / Summer Schafer | 66 | 69 | 135 | −9 |
| T3 | Elle Nachmann / Juno Taino | 66 | 70 | 136 | −8 |
| T3 | Annika Raja / Sabrina Sun | 69 | 67 | 136 | −8 |
| T3 | Morgan Ellison / Katie Scheck | 69 | 67 | 136 | −8 |
| T6 | Bella Dovhey / Sophia Dyer | 70 | 67 | 137 | −7 |
| T6 | Amelia Garibaldi / Katelyn Lehigh | 69 | 68 | 137 | −7 |
| T6 | Olivia Deakins / Madison Le | 70 | 67 | 137 | −7 |
Round of 32 Bracket: Monday Tee Times
Match play begins Monday at 9 AM EDT and runs through Wednesday’s semifinals and 18-hole championship match. Five rounds of match play decide the title. The complete Round of 32 draw, with EDT tee times:
| Time EDT | Seed | Side | vs | Seed | Side |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:00 | 1 | Lee / Oh | · | 32 | Goodman / Oralkhan |
| 9:12 | 16 | Linder / Miller | · | 17 | Singh / Yun |
| 9:24 | 8 | Deakins / Le | · | 25 | Montoya / Seidl |
| 9:36 | 9 | Chuang / Xu | · | 24 | Chi / Lee |
| 9:48 | 4 | Nachmann / Taino | · | 29 | Bowman / Manns |
| 10:00 | 13 | Cherry / Slatton | · | 20 | LaBarbera / Thomas |
| 10:12 | 5 | Raja / Sun | · | 28 | Roberts / Roberts |
| 10:24 | 12 | Jia / Little | · | 21 | Carter / Snyder |
| 10:36 | 2 | Reisner / Schafer | · | 31 | Dorsey / Lee |
| 10:48 | 15 | DeLoach / Sullivan | · | 18 | Hall / Lee |
| 11:00 | 7 | Dovhey / Dyer | · | 26 | Burnette / Spence |
| 11:12 | 10 | Barber / Saldana | · | 23 | Davis / Huber |
| 11:24 | 3 | Ellison / Scheck | · | 30 | Dinh / Kartes |
| 11:36 | 14 | Lemmon / Snively | · | 19 | Lee / Zhao |
| 11:48 | 6 | Garibaldi / Lehigh | · | 27 | O’Keefe / Shin |
| 12:00 | 11 | Guertin / Guertin | · | 22 | Cook / Yelverton |
Three Round of 32 Matches to Watch
9:12 AM — (16) Linder / Miller vs. (17) Singh / Yun
A bracket gift from Sunday’s seeding math. The 2025 runners-up against an SEC-tested side from the WAGR exemption tier. Singh and Yun spent all of Sunday clawing back into the bracket with a 6-under 66 — now they’re in a Round of 32 match with another credentialed exempt side. Whoever wins gets a winnable Round of 16 path.
11:12 AM — (10) Barber / Saldana vs. (23) Davis / Huber
The 2021 champions’ final U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball before turning professional later this year. Barber and Saldana opened with a 67 in the rain Saturday but cooled to 70 Sunday. Davis (Ocala, Fla.) and Huber (Gainesville, Fla.) shot a 66 Sunday to climb into the bracket — they’re tracking heat.
9:00 AM — (1) Lee / Oh vs. (32) Goodman / Oralkhan
The medalists open against the New York side that survived as the final seed in the bracket. Lee and Oh finished 36 holes without a bogey. The challenge for any No. 32 seed in this format is finding a way to extract birdies the medalists can’t match — in singles match play, the No. 1 seed wins this kind of opener at a high rate.
Round 2 Notables
- Lee/Oh’s three-stroke medalist margin is a championship record, surpassing all previous medalist gaps in the event’s 11-year history.
- Nikki Oh’s father, Ted, qualified for the 1993 U.S. Open at Baltusrol at age 16. He is currently a professional golf instructor.
- Katelyn Lehigh, who shared 2024 medalist honors with her sister Lauren, finished one stroke off the medalist mark with new partner (and Fresno State teammate) Amelia Garibaldi at 7-under 137.
- Maya Gaudin holed an eagle on the par-5 sixth in Sunday’s round — the championship’s second eagle, after Alexandra Snyder’s on the par-5 18th Saturday.
- Kimberly Dinh and Mary Janiga Kartes are the only mid-amateur (25+) side to advance. No mid-amateur side has ever won this title.
- Sunday’s sunshine produced 55 sub-72 rounds, against 33 in Saturday’s wind and rain.
- 13 of the 17 USNDP players in the field advanced to match play, including medalists Lee and Oh.
The Bigger Picture: Sunday Reset the Race
For the first time in five years, the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball will be decided without its defending champions. Natalie Yen is now a freshman at Texas A&M; her partner Asia Young entered without a defense partner. 2024 champions Asterisk Talley and Sarah Lim are also absent. The 11th playing arrived as the most wide-open four-ball field since the event’s 2015 debut at Bandon Dunes — and Sunday confirmed it.
Six of 13 credentialed exempt sides are out. The No. 1 seed is a USNDP duo. Two qualifying sides own the 2 and 4 seeds. The bracket’s top half is dominated by junior teams from California, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Lee and Oh sit alone as overwhelming favorites, but the format that produced 21-hole quarterfinals last year and a 22-hole first-round match in 2019 has a long history of rewarding patient sides over dominant ones.
Daniel Island Club: Ralston Creek by the Numbers
Daniel Island Club sits on a marsh-laced peninsula a few miles north of downtown Charleston. The Rees Jones–designed Ralston Creek Course is the venue for this week’s championship. At 6,501 yards from its championship tees, Ralston Creek is playing as the third-shortest setup in event history. The par-72 layout splits evenly into two par-36 nines. Sunday’s firm-but-receptive conditions allowed the field to score a combined 184 under par among sides making the cut — more than triple last year’s 57-under figure at Oak Hills.
| Hole | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Par | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 36 |
| Yards | 382 | 388 | 560 | 144 | 347 | 516 | 401 | 335 | 173 | 3,246 |
| Hole | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | In |
| Par | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 36 |
| Yards | 408 | 514 | 174 | 417 | 372 | 138 | 381 | 360 | 491 | 3,255 |
Schedule of Play
| Date | Day | Round | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 2 | Saturday | Stroke play, Round 1 | ✓ Complete |
| May 3 | Sunday | Stroke play, Round 2 & cut | ✓ Complete |
| May 4 | Monday | Round of 32, match play | Tomorrow • 9 AM EDT |
| May 5 | Tuesday | Round of 16 & quarterfinals | Upcoming |
| May 6 | Wednesday | Semifinals & 18-hole championship match | Upcoming |
Round 1 Recap (Saturday): Three Way Tie in the Rain
Cold rain and a steady Lowcountry wind didn’t slow the top of the leaderboard at Daniel Island Club on Saturday. Three sides shot 6-under 66 to share the 18-hole lead at the 11th U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball: Lee and Oh, Reisner and Schafer, and cousins Elle Nachmann and Juno Taino. Two of those sides went bogey-free in the rain. Four sides total finished R1 without a dropped shot.
2021 champions Savannah Barber and Alexa Saldana finished alone in fourth at 5-under 67 after seven birdies in difficult conditions, the only credentialed exempt side in the top tier after one round. Reagan Ramage of Burlington, Ky., 18, hit the opening tee shot of the entire 2026 USGA championship season.
★ Match Play Storylines
Cousins on a Run: Nachmann & Taino at the No. 4 Seed
Penn graduate Elle Nachmann is playing with her fifth different partner in six U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball appearances. This time it’s her 15-year-old cousin, Juno Taino, who’s playing in her first match-play tournament Monday. Taino’s father Eric won the 1992 US Open Boys Doubles tennis title; both of their mothers played tennis at Duke. The pair drew the No. 4 seed and a winnable Round of 32 path against No. 29 Bowman/Manns.
Barber & Saldana’s Final Four-Ball
The 2021 champions still hold the record for the largest winning margin in a championship final — 5 and 4 over Bourdage/Weidenfeld at Maridoe. They’re competing in their final Four-Ball before turning professional later this year. They open against No. 23 Davis/Huber, who shot 66 on Sunday to qualify and arrive in the bracket with momentum.
Lehigh’s Second Chance
Katelyn Lehigh shared 2024 medalist honors with her older sister Lauren before falling on the 20th hole in last year’s Round of 32. Now paired with Fresno State teammate Amelia Garibaldi, Lehigh again finished one stroke off medalist this year. Her stated approach to match play this time: “keep things light and crack jokes left and right.”
Mid-Am Stand-Alone: Dinh & Kartes
Kimberly Dinh and Mary Janiga Kartes are the only mid-amateur (25+) side to advance from this year’s field. No mid-amateur side has ever won this title in 11 years of competition. They draw a tough Round of 32 against No. 3 seed Ellison/Scheck, but they’re carrying the entire mid-am banner into Monday’s match play.
The 13 Exempt Sides — Who Survived
| Side | Exemption Source | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Jude Lee / Nikki Oh | WAGR top 400 | No. 1 seed |
| Mary Miller / Sophie Linder | WAGR top 400 | No. 16 seed |
| Athena Singh / Keira Yun | 2025 runners-up | No. 17 seed |
| Bella Dovhey / Sophia Dyer | 2025 semifinalists | No. 7 seed |
| Savannah Barber / Alexa Saldana | 2021 champions | No. 10 seed |
| Savannah Cherry / Lauren Slatton | 2024 semifinalists | No. 13 seed |
| Sydney Hackett / Melanie Walker | 2024 semifinalists | Missed cut |
| Chloe Johnson / Faith Johnson | 2025 quarterfinalists | Missed cut |
| Anya Mathur / Ailis Tribolet | 2025 quarterfinalists | Missed cut |
| Kate Tilma / Meg Tilma | 2025 quarterfinalists | Missed cut |
| Olivia Duan / Catherine Rao | WAGR top 400 | Missed cut |
| Ryann Honea / Emma Kaiser Bunch | WAGR top 400 | Missed cut |
| Lara Tennant / Ellen Port | WAGR top 400 | Missed cut |
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USGA History at Daniel Island Club
This is the second USGA championship contested at Daniel Island Club. The club’s prior USGA hosting—the 2023 U.S. Junior Amateur—produced one of the most memorable finals in recent junior golf, with Bryan Kim defeating New Zealand’s Joshua Bai 2 up after multiple weather delays pushed the match a full day past schedule. It was the first time in 21 years the U.S. Junior Amateur finished a day later than scheduled.
Daniel Island has also hosted three Korn Ferry Tour Championships (2009–2011), the 2018 Trusted Choice Big “I” National Championship, and the 2025 Bryson Invitational. This is the second U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball contested in South Carolina, joining the 2017 edition at The Dunes Golf & Beach Club in Myrtle Beach, won by Alice Chen and Taylor Totland.
Past Champions: A Decade of Four-Ball
A teenage duo has won every U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball since 2021 — five consecutive years. Lee and Oh enter Monday with a chance to extend that streak to six.
| Year | Champions | Margin | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Mika Liu & Rinko Mitsunaga | 4 and 3 | Bandon Dunes (Pacific Dunes), Ore. |
| 2016 | Hailee Cooper & Kaitlyn Papp | 19 holes | Streamsong (Blue), Fla. |
| 2017 | Alice Chen & Taylor Totland | 4 and 3 | Dunes G. & B.C., Myrtle Beach, S.C. |
| 2018 | Katrina Prendergast & Ellen Secor | 1 up | El Caballero C.C., Calif. |
| 2019 | Megan Furtney & Erica Shepherd | 2 and 1 | Timuquana C.C., Fla. |
| 2020 | Canceled (COVID-19 pandemic) | ||
| 2021 | Savannah Barber & Alexa Saldana | 5 and 4* | Maridoe G.C., Texas |
| 2022 | Thienna Huynh & Sara Im | 1 up | Grand Reserve G.C., Puerto Rico |
| 2023 | Gianna Clemente & Avery Zweig | 3 and 1 | The Home Course, Wash. |
| 2024 | Asterisk Talley & Sarah Lim | 4 and 2 | Oak Hills C.C., Texas |
| 2025 | Natalie Yen & Asia Young | 5 and 3 | Oklahoma City G&CC, Okla. |
Future U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Sites
- 2027: Farmington Country Club, Charlottesville, Va. (May 15–19)
- 2028: Blessings Golf Club, Johnson, Ark. (May 13–17)
- 2029: Desert Mountain Club, Scottsdale, Ariz. (May 12–16)
- 2030: Erin Hills, Erin, Wis. (May 18–22)
- 2035: The Country Club of York, Pa. (May 19–23)
- 2037: Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, Ore. (TBD)
By Wednesday afternoon, only one side will be left. Lee and Oh enter as overwhelming favorites, but match play’s history of upsets and 21-hole quarterfinals doesn’t care about stroke-play seeding. AmateurGolf.com’s on-the-ground reporting continues Monday through the championship match.
