After 17-year-old Bethany Wu of Yorba Linda, Calif. won medalist honors on Tuesday at the U.S. Women’s Amateur, she shockingly lost her first round match to 64-seed Abe Lakareber of Angleton, Texas. This marks the first time in at least 12 years that a No. 1 seed has last her opening match at the U.S. Women’s Amateur.
Despite the future UCLA Bruin’s loss, seven other California women remain and have advanced to Thursday’s round-of-32, including Pepperdine All-American and Alameda native Grace Na, who won her match 3-and-2 over Karah Sanford of Escondido.
Stanford’s Lauren Kim of Los Altos defeated Saki Iida 4-and-2. Future teammate of Wu at UCLA, Allison Lee of Valencia won her match 3-and-2 over recent Women’s Trans Amateur winner August Kim of Purdue University.
Jennifer Coleman, who just finished her senior year at the University of Colorado, won a close one-up match over Taylor Tomlinson of Gainesville, Fla. Coleman is originally from Rolling Hills Estates, Calif. 15-year-old Angel Yin of Arcadia, who played in the LPGA’s Kraft Nabisco Championship in 2013 and 2014, defeated fellow Californian Angella Yen of Rancho Cucamonga in a close one-up battle.
Andrea Lee of Hermosa Beach, who will attend Stanford in 2016, won her first match 4-and-3 over Mariana Sims of Austin, Texas. Amy Lee, last year’s Junior PGA Girls champion, rounds out the advancing Californians as the Brea native knocked off Marijosse Navarro of Mexico 2-and-1.
The round-of-32 will begin Thursday morning at Nassau Country Club in Glen Cove, N.Y., with the women playing two matches tomorrow should they advance.
A Californian last won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 2011 with Danielle Kang of Westlake Village captured the title with a 6-and-5 victory over Moriya Jutanugarn of Thailand.
Live scoring of all matches can be found here.
