All-NorCal final a possibility in 70th U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship

A week of “June Gloom” fog delays for the 2018 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at the NCGA’s Poppy Hills Golf Club peaked on Friday, when the completion of the last Round of 16 matches, and tee times for the Quarterfinal matches were eventually pushed back six hours from their original 7:00 a.m. starts.

When the fog had cleared and play was completed, the semifinal matchups are down to a quartet of American players, including two from NCGA territory – Yealimi Noh, 16, of Concord; and Lucy Li, 15, of Redwood Shores. Noh will face off against Gina Kim, 18, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the semifinal round; and Li will play Alexa Pano, 13, of Lake Worth, Florida.

Yealimi Noh, of Concord, is one of two NorCal players in the semifinals of the 70th U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship, being played at Poppy Hills Golf Club this week. (Copyright USGA/JD Cuban)

Noh, who is fresh off of a record-setting 24-under win in the PGA Jr Girls’ Championship last week, is particularly strong on the par-5s at Poppy Hills, though she has yet to see the par-5 18th in match play (she birdied all three of the par-5s that she played in her quarterfinal match) – her matches have finished on 16, 16, 17, and 13.

Li, who played in the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open as an 11-year-old, will face a tough opponent in Pano, who has only played past the 15th hole once in the match play portion of the tournament, when her Round of 16 match against Stephanie Kyriacou of Australia went to the 18th hole. Li has been played down to the wire in two of her matches, but closed out her opponents in the Round of 32 and Quarterfinal matches with late birdie runs.

Semifinal matches are scheduled to start Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m., with Li/Pano, followed by Noh/Kim at 7:15 a.m. – weather permitting. The 36-hole championship match will be split: 18 holes on Saturday, after the conclusion of the semifinal round, and the final 18 on Sunday morning.