Women's Amateur: Grant vs. Kouskova match looming

After two rounds of match play at Royal County Down, six women remain in the running for the R&A's Women's Amateur title. It’s one of the most coveted ones in women’s amateur golf, considering all that goes with it.

The winner of this week’s event will earn exemptions into the AIG Women’s British Open, the Evian Championship, next year’s U.S. Women’s Open and next year’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

England’s Hannah Screen, who recently finished her freshman season at Houston, got past Italy’s Letizia Bagnoli, 2 and 1, in her morning match only to fall to countrywoman Euphemie Rhodes in 19 holes in the afternoon. Screen had been the No. 1 seed on the match-play bracket, and was making a bid to become the second consecutive Houston player to win the event after teammate Leonie Harm did it last year.

Coincidentally, Harm fell in the first round, to Sweden’s Linn Grant. The incoming Arizona State player contended early at the 2018 U.S. Women’s Open, and her match against Harm was one of the marquee draws of the morning. It was lopsided in Grant’s favor – a relatively quick 5 and 4.

Grant won another big match in the afternoon, downing Finland’s Emilia Tukianen, 6 and 5.

That match came directly after Texas standout Sara Kouskova, who hails from the Czech Republic, only needed 13 holes to take down Wake Forest’s Vanessa Knecht, of Switzerland.

Amelia Garvey, the USC player with the powerful swing, is still in the mix and will face Denmark’s Puk Lyng Thomsen in the next round. Beatrice Wallin, a rising sophomore at Florida State, also played her way into the third round.

In the next-to-last match of Friday’s third-round lineup, Kouskova will meet Grant.