McCauley Is Tied after 16 Holes in U.S. Girls Junior Round of 16

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- It was almost like an ambush.

The top seeds had nearly all come through the first round of match play in the U.S. Girls Junior Championship on Wednesday pretty much unscathed, but by the end of play Thursday only two of the top 16 remained. Yana Wilson, the defending champion and this year's medalist, had cruised through her Round of 64 match, winning 5&4. But the carnage that was waiting at the U.S. Air Force Academy Eisenhower Golf Complex's Blue Course in the Round of 32 started with her. She lost to the No. 32 seed, Yeji Kwon, in 20 holes Thursday morning. No. 5 Tarapath Panya was the other most noteworthy victim in the second round. She was beaten 2&1 by No. 37 Kennedy Swedick.

Match play is unpredictable, but if there were favorites in the Girls Junior, Wilson was one, and No. 2 seed Anna Davis was the other. Davis is No. 4 in the Women's World Amateur Golf Rankings (easily the highest ranking of anyone in the tournament), and she won the 2022 Augusta National Women's Amateur. The 17-year-old left-hander from Spring Valley, Calif., finished one shot behind Wilson in the 36-hole stroke-play qualifying Monday and Tuesday, and won her first match 4&2. Davis needed only 15 holes to dispatch the No. 31 seed, Aphrodite Deng, 4&3 in the Round of 32. But then in the Round of 16, she ran into the runner-up from last year's Girls Junior, Gianna Clemente, the No. 18 seed. And in the best match of the tournament so far, the 15-year-old Clemente defeated Davis 3&2.

There was a 3-hour delay caused by thunder storms Thursday, but Clemente, No. 40 in the WAGRs, started quickly once the match got going. She birdied the first hole, and won the second and third holes with pars. Davis responded with three consecutive birdies, at the fifth, sixth and seventh. Clemente answered that burst by winning the eighth with a par and then birdying the 555-yard, par-5 ninth and par-4 10th -- and was 3 up once again. Davis cut the deficit to 2 down with a birdie at the 11th, before Clemente. won the par-3 13th with a birdie. They tied the next three holes, and that was that.

Six of the eight Round of 16 matches were completed, and two weren't. The No. 3 seed, Kiara Romero, was trailing No. 46 Natalie Yen 1 down with three holes to go, and the only top-10 seed to have won when play was. suspended for darkness was No. 10 Clarisa Temelo. She beat No. 26 Chizuru Komiya 2&1.

Besides the Yen-Romero match, the other match that didn't get finished Thursday afternoon/evening was the one between two-time Minnesota state high school champion Reese McCauley and 17-year-old CanadianLauren Kim, the No. 22 seed. They were tied with two holes to go.

McCauley barely got through the qualifying and into match play. A triple bogey on the 36th hole of stroke play (No. 9) put her in a precarious position as she finished the second round early Tuesday afternoon. Her 75-76--151 wasn't in the top 64 at that point, but the Eisenhower Blue Course kept picking off contenders as the day went on, and McCauley ended up iin a 10-way tie for 55th place. So she was in the match-play part of the tournament -- and without a playoff.

The long-hitting 17-year-old from Inver Grove Heights -- she averages roughly 270 to 275 yards off the tee -- continued to live dangerously in her first match, against the No. 6 seed, Anna Huang, a 14-year-old from China. After taking a 2-up lead by winning the 401-yard, par-4 eighth hole with a par, McCauley lost four of the next six holes. But she turned things around with a birdie at the 15th (408 yards, par 4) and won the par-3 17th (208) and par-4 18th (406) with pars to claim a. 1-up victory. Just as she had in the Round of 64, McCauley started her Round of 32 match against Pimpisa Rubrong, the No. 27 seed, with a birdie on the first hole Thursday morning, and a couple of hours later, she went 3 up by winning the ninth with a par. Just when it appeared she might have a relatively easy time of it, however, she made a double bogey at the 10th. She won the 11th with a conceded birdie but lost the 12th with a bogey.

That was the pattern on the back nine -- McCauley would win one hole with a par and lose the next with a bogey. But she was able to close Rubrong out 3&2 with a conceded birdie at the 566-yard, par-5 16th.

McCauley grabbed an early lead again in her Round of 16 match against Kim, winning the second hole with a par, tying the par-3 third (158 yards) with a birdie and winning the fourth with another par. Kim reversed things by winning the eighth with a par, the ninth with a birdie and the 12th with another birdie, which put her 1 up. McCauley pulled even when she birdied the 396-yard, par-4 14th.

Whoever emerges from the McCauley-Kim match will take on the survivor of the Romero-Yen match in the quarterfinals later Friday morning.