FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Brooke Oberparleiter and Kim Keyer-Scott saved their best golf for last, as they both captured their respective division titles in the 89th Ione D. Jones/Doherty Women’s Amateur Championship on a cool, breezy Friday morning at Coral Ridge Country Club.
Oberparleiter defeated Amateur division defending champion Alexa Pano 2 up. It was the first time the 16-year-old, who spends winters in Jupiter and the rest of the year in Blackwood, N.J., played in the event, whose past winners include current LPGA Tour pros Charley Hull and Lexi Thompson, as well as former professionals JoAnne Carner, Michelle McGann, Natalie Gulbis, and Vicki Goetze.
Keyer-Scott, 54, of Estero, won the Senior championship, defeating Susan Curtin of Westwood, Mass., 4 and 3. Corey Weworski of Carlsbad, Calif., beat Amy Kennedy of Naples to win the Senior first flight title.
“That was definitely one of the best rounds I’ve ever played in my life, and that’s what I needed today, so it came at the right time, that’s for sure,” said Oberparleiter, who started playing tournament golf when she was “11 or 12” and whose only previous victory was this past summer in an American Junior Golf Association tournament.
“I’m so honored to have even gone to the finals, and to win the event is huge for me,” said Oberparleiter, who credited her swing coach, Jeff Leishman, who teaches at Dye Preserve in Jupiter, for taking her game to the next level.
“I will 100 percent be back next year. This is a great tournament, it was run great and the course was in great condition. The greens were just amazing.”
After halving the first hole with Pano, who was seeking her third consecutive Doherty title and fourth overall, Oberparleiter lost the second hole with a bogey, and halved the third. She then birdied the fourth, halved the fifth with a birdie, and went 1 up with a birdie at the sixth.
“The first couple of holes my nerves were definitely up, but then I decided to calm down and that’s when the birdies started coming,” Oberparleiter said.
The match went back to all square when Oberparleiter bogeyed the seventh, she halved the eighth, then she birdied the ninth to get back to 1 up.
She and Pano parred the next four holes, then Oberparleiter birdied 14 to go 2 up. They halved 15, then Oberparleiter lost 16 after she lipped out her par putt.
“Going into 17, I was definitely feeling it,” Oberparleiter said of her nerves. “I just tried to relax and take a couple of deep breaths and hit the driver like I’d been hitting it all day.”
Both she and Pano hit good drives on 17, reached the green in regulation and two-putted for pars. On 18, after Pano hit her approach from 90 yards onto the front of the green, Oberparleiter put a 58-degree wedge from 75 yards nine feet from the pin.
Facing a tricky uphill-downhill putt from more than 20 feet away, as soon as Pano stroked her birdie attempt she knew it wasn’t going in and she walked over to Oberparleiter and conceded the hole.
“Today was obviously pretty frustrating,” said Pano, 17, of Lake Worth, who will start playing the LPGA’s developmental Symetra Tour as an amateur at the end of February, and play in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur at the end of March.
“I hit 16 greens, made a couple of birdies. I probably played well enough, but I didn’t make enough putts to win. They weren’t dropping and that’s something I’m really not used to. Usually my putting’s one of my biggest strengths.
“I left the door wide open for her.”
Keyer-Scott and Curtin were both competing for the first time in the most prestigious tournament for female amateurs 50 and older aside from the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur.
“I played great,” said Keyer-Scott, who was 3 under par for her 15 holes. She won the first hole with a par and the second with a birdie, halved the third, won the fourth, halved the fifth, and had a tap-in birdie on the sixth to get to 4 up. “Once I got up, all I was doing was trying to hit greens and make her make putts. She almost made some putts, unfortunately she hit a lot of edges.”
“She played awesome,” Curtin said“Steady, steady, steady.”
After they halved 10 and 11, Keyer-Scott won 12 with a two-putt par to get back to 3 up. After two more halves, she ended the match with a birdie at 15.
It was a meaningful victory for Keyer-Scott, who won the Florida State Golf Association’s Women’s Senior Amateur and Women’s Senior Open last year.
“This is as good as the others,” said Keyer-Scott, who didn’t take up golf until she was 30, went to college when she was 34 and was a four-time Division II All-American at Northern Kentucky University, as well as the National Freshman of the Year. “It’s a really nice course, a friendly staff … it’s really nice to be appreciated.”