Tsubasa Kajitani won a playoff on the first hole Saturday afternoon in a one-hole playoff to become the champion of the 2021 Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
Kajitani and Emilia Migliaccio came out of a crowded pack to finish at 1-over 217 for the tournament, holding off six players who tied at 2 over.
In the playoff on No. 18, Kajitani two-putted from the back of the green, while Migliaccio could not get up and down after sending her approach shot right of the bunker next to the green.
Co-leaders Rose Zhang and Ingrid Lindblad couldn’t hold off Kajitani and Migliaccio as the leaderboard became jammed. became part of a crowded leaderboard as the afternoon wore on.
A Zhang bogey on No. 17 meant she her and Lindblad had to birdie the final hole for spots in the playoff, but Lindblad’s pitch went to the right, and Zhang couldn’t convert a birdie putt from below the hole with Migliaccio and Kajitani. Both parred No. 18.
The scores reflected the temperature, as Oklahoma State’s Maja Stark, who won a Thursday playoff to make the Saturday field, had the day’s best score from the first grouping of the day. Her entered the clubhouse with a 3-under-par 69 to begin the day. As of 3:37 p.m., that was the low scorewas followed by 70s from Migliaccio and Pauline Roussin-Bouchard and a 71 from Ana Palaez Trivino. Kajitani shot 72.
A cool morning that saw tee times delayed an hour due to frost became a 65-degree day with turned into 65 degrees and sunny skies. Duke University sophomore Erica Shepherd felt like she was in a dream.
“It is absolutely heaven on earth. The first three greens I was actually having to snap myself out of thinking this is a dream,” she said. “The weather was a little cold this morning and somehow when we tee off, it’s just perfect, like not even cold. Sun is out. Beautiful day. So when you’re out here, it’s just hard to think that it’s real. And the fact that it is and I am getting to compete at Augusta, it’s really special.”
For many in their second ANWA start, 2019 was an overwhelming experience while this time around it was easier to focus on the competitiveness of the round. The University of Georgia’s Caterina Don said that made a difference for her on Saturday.
“I think the greens are a little firmer, and I struggled a little bit more today. But definitely knowing the course, one thing I knew was that it doesn’t play like a normal golf course,” she said. “Sometimes you get in a situation where you might have to chip when you’re back to the hole and just let it run and accept that it’s going to go maybe 20 feet by but that’s the best you can do.”
Northwestern’s grad student Brooke Riley said the course has a way of bringing out the best in each member of the field.
“I think when you’re competing out here, I think any time the girls that are out here that are competing, they go into a different level and I think especially out here that happens and you can see it on the leaderboard over there, girls are getting after it and its tight and it’s such good competition,” she said. “It’s a lot of fun.”
from Golfweek https://ift.tt/3dyDGcI