Mary Jane Hiestand and Calynne Rosholt (Southern Golf Association photo)
Calynne Rosholt defended her title at the Women’s Southern Amateur on Friday, which is an exceptionally hard thing to do in a match-play style event. Rosholt took the No. 4 spot on the match-play bracket, and played her way to the title from there. She won five matches over the course of the week at Lockwood Folly Golf Club in Holden Beach, N.C.
Rosholt is a 16-year-old from Cedar Park, Texas. Since winning last year’s Women’s Southern Am, she has played a schedule heavy in AJGA events. She won the Hunter Mahan Junior Championship earlier this year.
Rosholt had to defeat
Hannah Berman in the championship match. Earlier this week, Berman took down perhaps the most seasoned player in the championship division, former U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion
Lauren Greenlief. Rosholt only needed 14 holes to accomplish that.
After taking down Greenlief in the quarterfinals, Berman had defeated
Emma Whitaker, a rising junior at Oklahoma State, in the semifinals.
Rosholt’s path to the final also included a win over recent Georgia Women’s Match Play winner
Megan Schofill, Old Miss rising junior
Kennedy Swann, incoming Mississippi State freshman Abbey Daniel Texas A&M rising junior
Elizabeth Caldarelli.
In the mid-amateur division,
Mary Jane Hiestand took down
Lucy Nunn in the final match, 2 and 1.
The Women’s Southern Am is Hiestand’s first victory since winning the Florida Women’s Senior Open last fall. The Naples, Fla., native also played her way to the third round at the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur last year in her home state.
Hiestand had a tough semifinal match against Susan West, one of the top senior amateurs in Alabama, and eventually won, 2 up. In the round before that, Hiestand had beaten Carolyn Creekmore in just 13 holes.
Lucy Nunn played her way into the final from the No. 2 seed on the bracket. Nunn is the head women’s golf coach at Southern Mississippi.
ABOUT THE
Women's Southern Amateur
36 holes of qualifying followed by the top 32
advancing to a match play tournament. Open and
Mid-Amateur divisions. Entry is open to female
amateur golfers who are members of the WSGA
through a WSGA
member golf club, women’s golf organization, or a
college/university in one of the fifteen southern
states or
the District of Columbia.
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