Losing over nine hours of golf time hasn’t stopped half the field of the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championships at Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach from reaching Friday morning’s quarterfinal round.
Weather delayed the start of play for the third straight day Thursday and for some, like medalist Lucy Li of Redwood Shores, it meant a long day.
For Stanford commit Brooke Seay, the delay may prove beneficial. She’s currently down by two strokes to 46th-seeded Ashley Gilliam, a senior at Coffee County Central High and the two-time Tennessee Junior Girls Golf Champion.
Seay went 2 up after the second hole but a double bogey on the third hole cost her momentum and Gilliam, a Mississippi State commit, took advantage, winning points on four of the next six holes.
Seay hit par on six holes, including on the par-3 sixth hole, where Gilliam sank one of her two birdies before darkness postponed the match.
Li, who needed 43 holes to complete three victories in match play Thursday, won two of them by 1 up.
Concord’s Yealimi Noh and Florida’s 13-year-old Alexa Pano also completed victorious matches.
All quarterfinalists are exempt into the Girls’ Junior Championship, July 22-27 at SentryWorld in Stevens Point, Wis., provided they have not reached their 19th birthday by July 27 and remain an amateur.
Stanford-bound Calista Reyes dropped her match in the Round of 64 to North Carolina’s Rachel Kuehn, 3 and 2, on Thursday. She was a quarterfinalist in last year’s event.
“I always wanted to attend Stanford,” Reyes told the USGA website. “It’s in a great location with a great golf coach (Anne Walker). She’s had a lot of winning teams and has a great attitude about the game. She also improves a lot of players’ games. Combining the education (Reyes graduated from Rancho Bernardo High with a 4.27 GPA) with the golf program, there’s nothing like it.”
By Palo Alto Online Sports
By Palo Alto Online Sports
By Palo Alto Online Sports