Moore, Lee Advance, But Playoff Steals The Show

August 08, 2017

Pairings/Results

Escondido's Haley Moore finishes stroke play T3, while SCGA Women's Amateur champ Andrea Lee has a big second day to finish T7, but the story of the day at the 117th U.S. Women's Amateur Championship was the two-hole playoff that saw Day 2 action at San Diego CC go 40 minutes past sunset.

With 36 holes of stroke play concluding around 6:45 p.m., 56 women had claimed their spot in the Championship's match play portion, which kicks off Wednesday morning at 9:20 a.m. Leaving eight coveted spots still up for grabs, the eleven women who finished at 6-over par began a playoff that would last well over an hour before being suspended for darkness. With the bonus golf beginning on San Diego CC's par-4 10th hole, only three girls were able to par the challenging hole, which played the third-most difficult during the 36 holes of regulation stroke play over the past two days. That left five spots still up for grabs for eight girls, and with a short, 153-yard par 3 up next, the Championship Committee decided to continue play.

With the sun setting rapidly, the women battled darkness through the hole, with golf carts sporting headlights being brought in to help light the green. At one point, the gallery of spectators brought out their phone flashlights to help light an area for a chip. The result? Tze Han Lin earned her spot in the match play bracket, two women were eliminated, and five will return tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. to play Hole No. 3 of the playoff, San Diego CC's 17th, to determine the last four match play positions.


Luckily for the women from Southern California, none of them had to endure the dramatic playoff. With 22 Southland players in the initial field of 156, ten of them were able to advance past the cut and make the 64-player match play field. Leading the way was Moore, who ended Round 1 tied for the lead after an opening day 5-under par 67. Her 36-hole total of 4-under par grants her the No. 3 seed in the bracket, where she will face a player TBD by the playoff and tee off at 1:20 p.m.

Moore, a rising junior at the University of Arizona who advanced to the Round of 16 in the U.S. Girls’ Junior two weeks ago, had three birdies against four bogeys.

“I knew that there would be bogeys out there with this wind,” said Moore, who tied for second individually in the 2016 NCAA Championship. “I'd tell myself just to stay calm because there's a bunch of holes left. I came back with a birdie [on the par-5 eighth], which probably could have been an eagle, but then just stayed steady after that.”

Fresh off a win at the SCGA Women's Amateur Championship, Andrea Lee, a native of Hermosa Beach and rising sophomore at Stanford, continued her hot play with a two-day total of 2-under par to earn the bracket's No. 9 seed. She will tee off at 10:20 a.m. and face Sarah Rhee of Seattle.

Also advancing to match play are UCLA's Lilia Vu and Bethany Wu, USC's Robynn Ree, and San Diego's own Brooke Seay, who at just 16 years old made the cut earlier this summer in the U.S. Women's Open.

Schedule of Play

Aug. 9 (Wednesday): First round, match play
Aug. 10 (Thursday): Second and third rounds, match play
Aug. 11 (Friday): Quarterfinal round, match play
Aug. 12 (Saturday): Semifinal round, match play
Aug. 13 (Sunday): 36-hole championship final, match play

Television Coverage
The 2017 U.S. Women’s Amateur will receive at least 15 hours of live network coverage over five days on FS1, beginning with Wednesday’s Round-of-64 matches. All times PDT.

Aug. 9/Wednesday, 3-6 p.m., Round-of-64 matches
Aug. 10/Thursday, 3-6 p.m., Round-of-16 matches
Aug. 11/Friday, 3-6 p.m., Quarterfinal matches
Aug. 12/Saturday, 4-7 p.m., Semifinal matches
Aug. 13/Sunday, 1-4 p.m., Championship match (afternoon 18)



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