U.S. Women’s Amateur proving to be competitive
It's anybody's game now. Now that the field has been cut to 64 players for match play at the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship at Old Waverly, it's going to be an interesting fight to the finish to see who's lifting the Robert Cox Trophy on Sunday.
Two rounds of stroke play ended on Tuesday and it was real competitive.
Jiarui Jin and Alexa Pano may have finished stroke play sharing the lead at 6-under, but there were plenty of other golfers nipping at their heels before Tuesday's day was done.
For much of the afternoon, there was a logjam on the leaderboard near the top.
Megan Schofill was pretty locked in for second place at 5-under after finishing her round early, but at one time during the afternoon,
there were five golfers (Gabriela Ruffels, Morgan Baxendale, Lauren Hartlage, Albane Valenzuela and Jin) that were all sharing spots at 4-under.
Hartlage briefly jumped up to 6-under to
join Jin and Pano in first before she faltered on the final two holes.
It was crazy following the scores on Tuesday and if match play is any better than that, then the best is yet to come at Old Waverly.
From the talk around the course, it's about to get real serious with match play today.
“Match play is what matters at this event,” Schofill said.
It was nice to see incoming Mississippi State freshman Ashley Gilliam make the cut. It's nothing new for the Manchester, Tennessee, native as she also advanced to match play at the 2018 U.S. Women's Amateur.
Gilliam put together a much better round on Tuesday than she did on Monday to get in position to make it to today's beginning of match play.
The Bulldogs seem to be getting a nice player in Gilliam.
If Gilliam can compete and play well on this stage, then she can enjoy success in the Southeastern Conference with MSU.