Kinsley Ni (USGA Photo)
Covered from head to toe, including a facial mask, Kinsley (Nixin) Ni was clearly shielding any exposed skin from the searing Southern California sun. But what Ni didn’t hide during the stroke-play portion of the 75th U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at El Caballero Country Club was her remarkable golf talent.
The 16-year-old from the People’s Republic of China, who has spent the last three years living in the Inland Empire of Greater Los Angeles, backed up Monday’s opening-round 66 with a bogey-free, 6-under-par 65 Tuesday to earn medalist honors by four strokes.
Her 11-under 131 total was just one shot off the 36-hole championship record set in 2005 by Taylor Karle at BanBury Golf Course in Eagle, Idaho. Three others have posted 131, including 2021 U.S. Girls’ Junior champion Rose Zhang, now a two-time winner on the LPGA Tour.
Jasmine Koo, 18, of Cerritos, Calif., an incoming University of Southern California freshman who was just named to the 2024 USA Curtis Cup Team, and 2023 U.S. Girls’ Junior runner-up Rianne Malixi, 17, of the Philippines, each posted 7-under 135. Koo followed her opening-round 69 with a 66, while Malixi posted rounds of 68-67. She was also bogey-free on Tuesday.
Reigning U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball champion and U.S. National Junior Team member Asterisk Talley, 15, of Chowchilla, Calif., registered seven birdies in carding a 67 to finish solo fourth at 6-under 136. Three times in the round, she had consecutive birdies, including on Nos. 8 and 9 to close out the day. Talley shared low-amateur honors in the 2024 U.S. Women’s Open Presented by Ally at Lancaster (Pa.) Country Club.
First-round co-leader Aphrodite Deng, 14, of Canada, was another two strokes back at 137 (65-72), along with 2023 U.S. Women’s Open qualifier Kaili Xiao (68-69), 15, of China, Yuka Nishina (68-69), 14, of Japan, and 18-year-old Canadian Vanessa Borovilos (70-67), a 2024 Texas A&M signee who made six consecutive 3s to close her round.
Kylee Choi, 17, of Murrieta, Calif., who matched Deng’s 65 on Monday, shot a 2-over 73 and was among the group at 138, along with Natalie Yen, 17, of West Linn, Ore., and 2024 U.S. Women’s Open qualifier Amelie Zalsman, 15, of St. Petersburg, Fla.
The cut for match play came at 5-over 147, with an 8-for-3 playoff to decide the final spots in the 64-player draw. It was suspended on the second playoff hole due to darkness and will resume at 7 a.m. PDT.
With temperatures creeping into the low 90s for a second consecutive day, Ni, who battles sun allergies, took every precaution to ensure her golf game, and not the extreme heat, would take center stage. Coming off a runner-up finish to Canadian 13-year-old Clara Ding in the American Junior Golf Association’s RLX Ralph Lauren Classic at Bethpage State Park’s Black Course, and the Ryder Cup-style Wyndham Cup in South Carolina, where she beat 2022 U.S. Girls’ Junior runner-up Gianna Clemente in singles, Ni had plenty of good mojo for her second USGA championship and first U.S. Girls’ Junior (she missed the cut in last year’s U.S. Women’s Amateur at nearby Bel-Air C.C.).
“She’s just really solid all-around,” said Clemente, the 2023 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball champion and No. 23 player in WAGR who advanced to match play with a 36-hole total of 1-under 141 (72-69). “There’s not really a strength or a weakness. Very solid. She doesn’t hit a lot of shots offline and she’s really good with the putter. She’s a really good player and I saw that last week.”
Two years ago, at 14 years, 11 months, 6 days, Ni became the youngest winner of a China LPGA Tour event when she captured the Golf Liquor Challenge. Last summer, she was the runner-up in the Girls’ Junior PGA Championship in Hot Springs, Ark. Those performances have boosted Ni to No. 149 in the WAGR.
Taking advantage of near-windless conditions and receptive greens, Ni went out in 2-under 34 and posted four back-nine birdies, including a 15-footer on the par-4 18th to close stroke play in style. She also made three consecutive birdies from No. 12, which could have been four had she not missed a 3-footer on No. 11.
“That was a pretty solid round,” said Ni, a rising high school junior at Orion International Academy in Ontario, Calif. “Six birdies was pretty good. My iron shots are pretty good this week, and also putting. But I did miss one [birdie putt] today.”
Malixi, who has played tournaments in 12 different countries over the past two years, including the U.S., Cambodia, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, got off to a blistering start with four birdies over her first seven holes, but then settled in for a streak of 11 consecutive pars.
Like Ni, Malixi, who has committed to attend Duke University in 2025, has enjoyed a solid competitive year that includes a win in the Women’s Australian Master of the Amateurs, a runner-up finish to Asterisk Talley in the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley, and the same result in The Royal Junior in Japan. She also finished fifth in the Asia-Pacific Women’s Amateur and Korean Women’s Open, and eighth in the Australian Women’s Amateur.
Koo’s meteoric rise up the WAGR started a year ago when she won the Women’s Western Amateur, a title she couldn’t defend this year due to the conflict with the U.S. Girls’ Junior. A 13th-place showing in the Chevron Championship, a win in the recent Toyota Junior World Cup in Japan, second in the AJGA’s Rolex Tournament of Champions and third at Sage Valley were all part of that surge, which landed her a spot on the Curtis Cup team that will travel to Sunningdale Golf Club in England next month.
On Tuesday, Koo played a three-hole stretch on her second nine – she started on No. 10 – in 4 under, which included an eagle-3 on the par-5 seventh. Facing a 233-yard second shot, Koo hit driver off the deck to 15 feet.
“That was always the plan ever since I first saw that hole,” said Koo, who is making the 45-minute daily commute from her parents’ home. “A 3-wood is not going to get there because it’s going to catch the wind. I was like, ‘How about I just go driver off the deck.’ If I hit it bad, it’s in that [greenside] bunker and it’s kind of a simple up and down. I choked it down a little. It was solid. But it was fading a little towards the bunker on the right. I got mixed reviews [from people watching]. One said it landed in the bunker and hopped out. One said it hit the rake. It did something.”
Talley, meanwhile, has an opportunity to do something only three previous females have achieved: win multiple USGA titles in the same year. Pearl Sinn (1988), Jennifer Song (2009) and Eun Jeong Seong (2016) are the only players to pull off the feat. In May, she teamed with fellow Northern Californian Sarah Lim to take the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball title at Oak Hills Country Club in San Antonio.
That came on the heels of attending the inaugural U.S. National Junior Team camp, qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open, winning the prestigious Junior Invitational at Sage Valley and finishing eighth in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
“I’m trying not to think too far ahead of myself,” said Talley, who went 2-1-1 in last week’s Wyndham Cup for the West squad, including a singles win over Elizabeth Rudisill with an eagle 3 on the final hole. “I’m just trying to win each match one by one.”
That will be the overlying theme the next four days.