Elizabeth Wang of San Marino and Brad Dalke of Hobart, Okla., won their respective divisions in playoffs in the 40th Junior PGA Championship at Miramont Country Club in Bryan, Texas.
Wang, who rallied from three strokes down with five holes remaining to force a playoff with Mariel Galdiano of Pearl City, Hawaii, wedged her approach from 109 yards to within 18 inches to set up a winning birdie on the first extra hole.
“Yeah, it was about a foot and a half, but it felt like 10 feet,” said Wang, a sophomore at San Marino High. “It feels great. It’s been a year since I’ve had any kind of win at all, so it feels really nice.”
Wang posted a score of 68-70-71-73–282, two-under-par, while Galdiano finished at 70-70-70-72–282.
Yujeong Son of Norman, Okla., was third at 64-73-75-73–285, followed by Karah Sanford of Escondido at 73-72-73-71–289.
Alyaa Abdulghany of Newport Beach tied for seventh at 73-77-72-70–292, while Luci Li of Redwood Shores tied for ninth at 73-75-74-74–296.
Dalke made a tap-in birdie on the second playoff hole to turn back Wilson Furr of Jackson, Miss.
“It’s my last junior event,” said Dalke, who will be a freshman at the University of Oklahoma. “I definitely wanted to end on a good note. I put in a lot of hard work, been going through some rough times the last five or six months. It’s just a lot of hard work that’s paid off.”
Dalke carded a score of 68-62-73-75–278, while Furr finished at 68-70-73-67–278.
Kaiwen Liu of San Diego shot 69-67-70-73–279 to tie for third with Will Thomson of Pittsford, N.Y., who finished 69-70-69-71–279, and Cole Hammer of Houston, who came in at 70-68-67-74–279.
Kendel Hodges of Temecula tied for 21st at 71-78-73-72–294.
