Anneka Seumanutafa and Faith Choi (USGA photo)
Aneke Seumanutafa and Faith Choi, two Maryland teenagers who shot a record 12-under-par 60 on Saturday, followed up with a 2-under 70 in Sunday’s second round of stroke play to earn medalist honors by two strokes in the fifth U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville, Fla.
Seumanutafa, 18, of Emmittsburg, Md., who is a freshman at Ohio State University, and Choi, 16, of Frederick, Md., who plans to attend Ohio State beginning in 2021, made their only bogey of the weekend on the second hole Sunday morning, but bounced back immediately with a birdie on No. 3. After 11 consecutive pars, they closed out stroke play with two birdies on their final four holes to break the 36-hole scoring record by two strokes. Four teams had previously shot 132.
“We were really steady,” said Seumanutafa, who saw the course for the first time on Saturday because of final exams at Ohio State. “We didn’t want to make any big mistakes. We made lots of pars, including some good up-and-downs for both of us.”
Rachel Heck, of Memphis, Tenn., and Sadie Englemann, of Austin, Texas, shot a second straight 66 to take the No. 2 seed in the 32-team match-play bracket.
“We’re best friends and we always have to play against each other, so to actually be able to play on a team together, we’re having so much fun,” said Heck, who made the cut in the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open.
USGA champions Kelsey Chugg, of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Julia Potter-Bobb, of Indianapolis, Ind., were one stroke farther back at 10-under 134. Potter-Bobb, 31, won the 2013 and 2016 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur titles and Chugg won the 2017 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur. Both have also been runners-up in the championship.
“It’s a tough course that was getting even tougher, with the greens not holding as much and a little more breeze,” said Potter-Bobb. “To walk away with no bogeys today when neither one of us were really playing our best game, that makes us feel good going into match play.”
The cut came at 2-under 142 and landed exactly on 32 teams, meaning that no playoff was required.
View results for U.S. Women's Four-Ball
ABOUT THE
U.S. Women's Four-Ball
The U.S. Women's Amateur Four-Ball was played for
the first time in 2015 at Bandon Dunes Golf
Resort in Bandon, Oregon. It immediately became
one
of the USGA's most popular tournaments. The event,
which
has
no age restriction, is open to those women
with
a Handicap Index of 14.4 or lower. It is one
of
15 national championships conducted annually
by
the USGA.
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