For the first time in 60 years, no matches went to extra holes in the first two rounds of match play at the U.S. Women’s Amateur.
For those counting, that’s 48 matches Wednesday and Thursday morning at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The last time that happened? 1964 at Prairie Dunes, also a Perry Maxwell design.
Of course, eventually there would be overtime, though in just one Round-of-16 match: Texas A&M’s Adela Cernousek, the reigning NCAA individual champion, versus Texas’ Lauren Kim. Cernousek double-bogeyed the first hole and trailed 2 down at the turn before winning three straight holes, at Nos. 10-12. She lost her lead just three holes later, then parred the par-4 18th to force extras, where Kim flied the green with her approach on the second extra hole and ended up losing with bogey.
“I can’t wait to find out if I get to be here for another day,” Cernousek said. “It’s always nice to be able to play this course one more time because it’s beautiful.”
Cernousek, a rising senior from France, now draws high-schooler Asterisk Talley in Friday’s quarterfinals. Talley is the recent runner-up at the U.S. Girls’ Junior, where she fell to Rianne Malixi in the championship match. Malixi, a Duke commit from the Philippines, also advanced to the quarters and will meet Princeton’s Catherine Rao, who is in her third straight U.S. Women’s Amateur quarterfinals.
Rao missed her entire sophomore season due to a shoulder injury that occurred in a scooter accident two years ago. Rao played through labrum and joint issues last summer, but she reaggravated the shoulder while picking up her backpack last fall. She didn’t play again until her U.S. Women’s Open qualifier in May, and two events later, she made the Round of 16 at the Women’s British Amateur.
“I think there’s always been a part of me that knew I have it in me,” Rao said.
Two Arkansas players are in the other two quarterfinal matches: Top-seeded Maria Jose Marin will play Auburn star Anna Davis while Kendall Todd gets Stanford’s Kelly Xu.
Davis has Tulsa junior Jenni Roller as her caddie. Roller, who won the Southern Hills Junior Masters two years ago, got the job after Davis’ twin brother, Billy, “kind of bailed on me like two weeks ago.”
“I didn’t have to do much work at all,” Davis added. “She’s been great so far.”