US Girls Junior Championship Columbia Country Club Rose Zhang open ryder lpga

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Rose Zhang, who won the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Woodmont Country Club last August, returned to the Washington, D.C., area and captured the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at Columbia Country Club on Saturday. It was a dominant week for the No. 1 player in the Women’s Amateur Golf Rankings, as she became the eighth golfer ever to win both those prestigious USGA amateur championships, but the first in this order. In the 36-hole final, Zhang, of Irvine, Calif., defeated Bailey Davis, a Maryland resident who qualified at Columbia for the championship and had ample support on the grounds Saturday. Unlike the Women’s Amateur, which went to 38 holes up the road against Gabi Ruffels, the 18-year-old Zhang closed out Davis on the 14th green (32nd hole) to win the final, 6 and 4. The comfortable margin was emblematic of a week in which Zhang won medalist honors by three shots in the stroke-play portion of the championship, and then had only one of her six matches go past the 16th green in the match-play bracket. The margin in the final match was built during more brilliant play in the morning round, as she went to the lunch break after 18 holes with a 4-up lead over Davis. It’s match play, and the ball does not see the bottom of the cup on every hole, but the morning round would have been a 65 on the scorecard. It was a clinical tee-to-green display that left 16-time Columbia club champion and two-time Walker Cupper Martin West, who has seen it all at this course, shaking his head in amazement at the level of play on both sides as they got set to go out for the afternoon.