Two Atlanta-area teenagers won the seventh U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship on Sunday at the Grand Reserve Golf Club in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.
Thienna Huynh of Lilburn and Sara Im of Duluth defeated Kaitlyn Schroeder of Florida and Bailey Shoemaker of New York 1 up in the championship match.
Huynh chipped in for a birdie on the first hole to set the pace, and she and Im were up by three holes at the turn and again after 12. But Schroeder and Shoemaker won back-to-back holes to trim the lead to one through No. 14. Huynh and Im won the 15th with a birdie, but lost the 16th and led by one hole. Huynh and Im matched pars on the final two holes to win the title.
“Going into 18, we were there before for three of our matches,” Huynh said. “We were 1 up going into the last hole, so I think we had the nerves to handle that. Also, 18 isn’t easy. It’s not a gimme par-5 that people think it is.”
They won a semifinal match Sunday morning, eliminating the Ohio team of Kary Hollenbaugh and Anna Ritter 4 and 3.
“This whole week we played really consistently,” Huynh said. “It’s been the same scores, minus 3, minus 4 the entire way. I think that’s something we have over our competitors is that we don’t have a day where everything is going in or everything is not going in.”
Huynh and Im also reached the quarterfinals of the tournament in 2019 and 2021. Huynh was the 2021 Georgia State Golf Association’s Junior Girls Player of the Year. Im won the 2018 Drive, Chip and Putt championship in the 12-13 division. Im defeated Huynh in a seven-hole playoff to win the 2020 Georgia Women’s Amateur Championship.
The win earns them a 10-year exemption into the Women’s Amateur Four-Ball, provided the side remains intact and amateur. Huynh and Im also guaranteed them a spot in the 2022 U.S. Women’s Amateur and the 2022 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship.
It was the first victory for a Georgia team in the event. Roswell’s Rinko Mitsunaga, who played four seasons at Georgia and is now an assistant golf coach at Tulane, teamed up with Mika Liu of California to win the first event conducted in 2015.
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