Due to wet course conditions, the ANWA Committee enacted the Model Local Rule E-3 “preferred lies” for the first two rounds of the tournament. The rule allows players to lift, clean and replace the ball in “areas cut to fairway height or less”, but Davis mistakenly though it applied to the entire course, and she twice lifted her ball in the rough. With two 2-shot penalties, her score on the first hole went from a 5 to a 9.
More updates to follow...
The fourth edition of the Augusta National Women's Amateur tees off on Wednesday at Champions Retreat where an elite field of 72 women will compete for one of amateur golf's most coveted championships.
With 29 of the top 30 players in the current women’s world rankings in the field, there is no shortage of marquee pairings for the first day at Champions Retreat.
World No. 2 Ingrid Lindblad, who has finished in the top-three in each of her first two ANWAs, will be paired with Boyhun Park and Mizuki Hashimoto, the 2023 Australian Women's Amateur and 2021 Women's Amateur Asia-Pacific champion who is making her second ANWA appearance.
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Click here for a complete list of ANWA pairings and tee times
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Defending champion Anna Davis, who is coming off a win a few weeks ago at the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley, begins her title defense at 9:21 a.m. ET when she tees off with Wake Forest's Emilia Migliaccio, who finished runner-up in 2021, and Florida State's Charlotte Heath, the 2020 Australian Women's Amateur champion who is making her first trip to Augusta.
World No. 4 Rachel Kuehn, one of three Wake Forest players in the field, is paired with Stanford freshman Megha Ganne and 2022 Japan Women's Amateur champion Sayaka Teraoka.
2021 U.S. Women's Amateur champion Jensen Castle tees off alongside Wake Forest sophomore Carolina Lopez Chacarra, who is making her third ANWA appearance and Minsol Kim, the 2022 Korea Girls Junior champion who tied for 10th in the LPGA Tour's BMW Ladies Championship in her homeland in October.
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Related: ANWA: The most intriguing players in the field
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The first 36 holes will be played at Champions Retreat Golf Club (Island and Bluff nines) on Wednesday and Thursday and after a cut, the top 30 players and ties will compete in the final round at Augusta National Golf Club on Saturday, April 1.
This year's ANWA will feature expanded broadcast coverage, as Golf Channel will televise the first and second rounds from Champions Retreat from 1:30-3:30 p.m. ET. NBC will air the final round from Augusta National beginning at 12 noon ET on April 1.