Woad, Romero Tied for 1st Going into the Final Round of the ANWA; McCauley Misses the Cut by 1

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It's been 46 years since Fuzzy Zoeller won the Masters (1979) in his first appearance at the iconic Augusta National course. No one has won the tournament as an Augusta rookie since then, and Zoeller remains the only player to have won the Masters on his first try in the 90 years since Gene Sarazen did it in 1935.

The Augusta National Women's  Amateur has a considerably shorter history than the Masters, having been played for the first time in 2019. (It wasn't played in 2020, the Covid Year.) Rookies won it the first three times it was played, as could be expected in a tournament with a brief history. But that's changing. Having experience in this tournament seems to matter more an more as the years go by.

Kiara Romero, the University of Oregon sophomore who stormed into a tie for the 36-hole lead on Thursday by making birdies on her last three holes at Champions Retreat, missed the cut last year when she was playing in the tournament for the first time. She shot a 4-under 68 in the second round this year and is tied with the defending champion, Florida State junior Lottie Woad, at 135.

The first two rounds of this tournament are played Wednesday and Thursday at Champions Retreat, a 27-hole golf  complex designed three guys who have won a combined total of 13 Masters titles -- Jack Nicklaus (6), Arnold Palmer (4) and Gary Player (3). Friday is a day off from competition, and even though the field is cut to the top 30 and ties after the second round, all 70 of the players who started the tournament get to play a practice round on Friday at Augusta National. That's where the final round of the tournament is played on Saturday.  

Woad, the No. 1 player in the World Amateur Golf Rankings (Romero is No. 5), birdied three of the last four holes in the Saturday round at Augusta last year to claim a one-stroke victory in the 2024 ANWA But that was her third time in this event. She opened her defense of the title this year by shooting a 65 at Champions Retreat, and followed it with a 70 in the second round Thursday on her way to 135. 

Impressive as she's been in this tournament in '24 and '25, Woad, like Romero, missed the cut in her first crack at the ANWA, three years ago. 

So Bella McCauley shouldn't be too disappointed about missing the cut in her first appearance at this tournament. A junior at Minnesota (she will graduate  this spring after three years in school, but play for the Gophers again in the 2025-26 college season as a graduate student), the 2024 champion of the ever-expanding Big Ten Conference (it now has 18 schools), got off to a less-than-great start on Wednesday. She was 4 over after her first nine holes, the back nine at Champions Retreat, but she was 4 under for her last 27 holes.

She came back from her front-nine 40 with a 1-under 35 on the back side at Champions Retreat, and then shot 69 on Thursday. The resulting two-day tab of even-par 144 would have made the cut last year. This year, however, it missed by one.

McCauley started her second round on the 10th hole -- again -- at Champions Retreat. It's a 385-yard par 4, and she birdied it, but she bogeyed the par-3 12th (150 yards). She got back into red numbers with a birdie at the 515-yard, par-5 14th, and also birdied the 325-yard, par-4 15th. As it turned out, she needed two more birdies after that to make the cut. She made 10 pars in a row (the 16th through the seventh) before making a birdie at the par-3 eighth (160 yards), but she couldn't get the one more she needed at the 500-yard, par-5 ninth.   

As for Romero and Woad, they have five players in hot pursuit of them going into Saturday's finale at Augusta National. The first-round leader, Mega Ganne, was 10 shots higher on Thursday than she was on Wednsday (a 73, compared with her first-round 63), but she's still only one stroke behind the co-leaders at 136. She's part of a three way tie for third, along with Carla Bernat Escuder (68-68) and Andrea Revuelta, who posted a second-round 66.

And there are another two players tied for sixth at 137 -- Asterisk Talley, who got there with a 66, and Meja Ortengren, who has gone 68-69 thus far.      


2025 Augusta National Women's Amateur

April 2-3 & 5

At Champions Retreat (par 72) April 2&3

At Augusta National (par 72) April 5

T1. Kiara Romero                       67-68--135 (-9) 

T1. Lottie Woad                           65-70--135

T3. Carla Bernat Escuder            68-68--136

T3. Andrea Revuelta                    70-66--136

T3. Megha Ganne                        63-73--136

T6. Asterisk Talley                        71-66--137

T6. Meja Ortengren                      68-69--137

Cut -- 143 (-1) 

T33. Bella McCauley                  75-69--144