Some familiar—and not so familiar—NorCal-affiliated players in the field at this week’s U.S. Women’s Open

San Francisco’s Olympic Club is no stranger to USGA championship golf; the world-renowned golf club that sits between Lake Merced and the Pacific Ocean in the western reaches of the city has hosted five memorable U.S. Opens, two U.S. Amateur tournaments, three U.S. Junior Amateurs, and the inaugural Men’s Fourball Championship, in 2015. This week, though, the club records a first, as it hosts the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open on the challenging Lake Course.

While the field at the second USWO to be played in the Bay Area (the 2016 event was hosted by the CordeValle Resort in San Martin, south of San José) will be replete with world-class players, local fans may be interested in following the play of the even dozen golfers with Northern California connections who are listed below. They range from a high-school-age amateur to experienced professionals with major championship victories to their credit—including two who have hoisted the very trophy which will be awarded to the winner here on Sunday afternoon.

Will one of these twelve women, with their local knowledge and experience of NorCal weather and turf conditions, hoist the Harton S. Semple trophy on Sunday afternoon? 

Claire Choi (a)

Amateur competitor Claire Choi, a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, is a rising senior at Santa Clara University and a graduate of Punahou High School in Honolulu, the alma mater of 2014 USWO champion Michelle Wie West.

Claire qualified for the 2021 USWO, her first, with a 4-over-par 144 at Oahu Country Club on May 10th—the day before her 21st birthday.

Paula Creamer

Pleasanton, CA, native Paula Creamer has been a well-known presence in LPGA fields since 2005, after a junior/amateur career that included 11 AJGA titles, selection to the 2004 Curtis Cup team and low amateur honors in the 2004 U.S. Women’s Open.

Paula took the 2010 USWO title, carding the only under-par total score over 72 holes at Pennsylvania’s Oakmont Country Club. Her USWO record includes 11 straight Top 20 finishes, and five Top 10s, from 2004 to 2014.

Mina Harigae

Monterey’s Mina Harigae made waves early in her golf career, winning the first of four consecutive California Women’s Amateur titles in 2001 at the age of 12. Other highlights of her amateur golf career include semifinalist finishes in the U.S. Girls’ Junior in 2003 and 2006, winning the 2007 Women’s Amateur Public Links at the age of 17, and representing the United States on the 2008 Curtis Cup team.

Mina turned pro after one semester at Duke University and has seven professional victories to her credit: three on the Symetra Tour, and four on the Cactus Tour in Arizona during the LPGA’s COVID-19 hiatus. This is her 11th U.S. Women’s Open appearance.

Rachel Heck

Currently the hottest amateur in the country, Stanford University freshman Rachel Heck took medalist honors at the May 3rd qualifier at Marin Country Club in Novato with an 8-under 136. Last August she was the stroke play medalist at the U.S. Women’s Amateur before being defeated in the Round of 16, and in 2017 was the youngest competitor in the field at the U.S. Women’s Open, finishing T-33.

Danielle Kang

SoCal-raised but born in San Francisco, Danielle Kang is making her 11th start in the U. S Women’s Open this week. Her best finish in the event is a solo 4th at Shoal Creek in 2018, but Kang is no stranger to the podium in USGA competition; she took back-to-back U.S. Women’s Amateur titles in 2010 and 2011.

Christina Kim

San José native Christina Kim has made 16 previous U.S. Women’s Open appearances, her highest finish being a T-8 in the 2010 event at Oakmont Country Club. She has one USGA championship title to her name—the 2001 U.S. Girls’ Junior. Kim has represented the United States on three Solheim Cup teams, and has racked up six Top-10 finishes in major championships, including a tie for third in the 2009 Women’s British Open.

Jaclyn LaHa (a)

Another Pleasanton native, Jaclyn LaHa, a 16-year-old rising high school junior, is the second-youngest competitor in the field of the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open. LaHa shot a 7-under 137, including a 5-under 67 in the afternoon round, at Marin Country Club in Novato to take the second and final qualifying spot from that event.

Lucy Li

Making her third U.S. Women’s Open appearance this week, 18-year-old Lucy Li, of Redwood Shores, played in her first in 2014 at Pinehurst Resort and Country Club. Li set a record for the youngest competitor in the history of the event at 11 years, 8 months, and 19 days, but shot a pair of 78s to miss the cut.

Other notable “youngest competitor” marks she has set include youngest match-play qualifier in U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links history at 10 years, 8 months, 16 days in 2013, and youngest U.S. Women’s Amateur qualifier (10 years, 10 months, 4 days), also in 2013. Li played on the winning 2018 United States Curtis Cup team, and took medalist honors that same year in the U.S. Girls’ Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur.

Yealimi Noh

Another native of the East Bay, Concord’s Yealimi Noh is making her second U.S. Women’s Open appearance. She contended for three rounds in last year’s late-season Open in December at Champions Club in Houston, Texas, but slipped to a tie for 40th after a final-round 80.

Noh is one of six Northern California natives to claim the U.S. Girls’ Junior title, at Poppy Hills in 2018, joining Pat Hurst (1986), Jamille José (1988), Dorothy Delasin (1996,) Lisa Ferrero (2000), and Christina Kim (2001) in that honor.

Kathleen Scavo

Benicia’s Kathleen Scavo joins the field for the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open on the strength of a medal-winning 1-over 143 in the April 26 qualifier at Half Moon Bay Golf Links.

This is the second U.S. Women’s Open appearance for Scavo, a graduate of the University of Oregon; she qualified for the 2014 event but missed the cut on the challenging Pinehurst #2 course. Her resulyts in previous USGA championships include advancing to the quarterfinals of the 2013 U.S. Girls’ Junior, and advancing to the round of 16 in the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball at Bandon Dunes, Oregon, with partner Lucy Li.

Michelle Wie West

A native of Hawaii who graduated from Stanford University and who now resides in San Francisco with husband Jonnie West and daughter Makenna, Michelle Wie West needs no introduction to golf fans.

A prodigy who qualified for the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links at age 10, Wie West became the championship’s youngest winner at age 13, She showed showed major championship mettle in the 2003 Kraft-Nabisco Championship (now the ANA Inspiration), becoming the youngest player to make the cut, and playing in the final group on Sunday after a blistering 66 the previous day.

Wie West’s U.S. Women’s Open record over 15 appearances is a checkered one—it includes a win, in 2014 at Pinehurst; a T-3 finish in 2006 at Newport Country Club; a T-10 in 2018 at Shoal Creek; four MCs; and two WDs due to injury.

Rose Zhang

Set to join the Stanford Women’s Golf team in the fall of 2021, Irvine, California, native Rose Zhang is making her third U.S. Women’s Open start this week. Zhang is the reigning U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, and took low amateur honors at this year’s ANA Inspiration.

A legend shares her wisdom at local U.S. Women’s Open qualifier

Much was made in golf-related social and traditional media a couple of weeks ago when the news broke that Juli Inkster—LPGA legend, multiple major winner, and three-time Solheim Cup captain—had entered the April 26th U.S. Women’s Open qualifying tournament at Half Moon Bay Golf Links.

Juli Inkster watches the flight of her tee shot at the par-four 8th hole of the Half Moon Bay Golf Links Old Course in the second round of a qualifying tournament for the 2021 USGA U.S. Women’s Open. (photo by Gary K. McCormick)

A Bay Area local, Inkster grew up in Santa Cruz, played college golf at San Jose State University, and lives in Los Altos Hills with her husband, Brian, who is the Director of Golf at Los Altos Golf and Country Club. Since home is just 40 minutes down the Peninsula from the Olympic Club in San Francisco, where the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open will be held in early June, she decided to take a shot at qualifying for the event. 

“I’m probably an idiot for trying,” said 60-year-old Inkster, “but I think I would be disappointed in myself if I didn’t because it’s so close to home.”

She hasn’t played in a U.S. Women’s Open since 2015, when she finished T15 after four consecutive missed cuts in the event, but has two victories in the tournament to her credit, in 1999 and 2002, as well as four other top 10 finishes since 1988.

Inkster was by far the, uh, most experienced player in the field at the Half Moon Bay qualifier, and was paired with two of the youngest players in the event: Kiara Romero, a 15-year-old high school freshman from San Jose who was the 2019 – 2020 Junior Tour of Northern California Girls’ Player of the Year; and 16-year-old Harper Clementz of San Francisco, a sophomore at San Francisco University High School and a Junior Merit member at the Olympic Club who aspires to a career as a NASA Flight Director.

Thirty-six holes of golf on a challenging and hilly course like the Old Course at Half Moon Bay Golf Links is a real test, and Juli was very encouraging to her two young playing partners throughout the long day. The holes at the Old Course at Half Moon Bay Golf Links, a 1973 Arnold Palmer and Francis Duane design, are a banquet of uneven lies, strategic bunkering, and subtly contoured greens. Add to that mixture the fatigue of a long day—36 holes of golf with (as it turned out) only 15 minutes between rounds, the changing conditions that necessarily accompany a day of golf that stretches from an 8:20 a.m. tee time to nearly 6:30 p.m.—and even golfers with twice the experience of Kiara Romero and Harper Clementz will find the going tough.

Throughout the day Inkster was welcoming and encouraging to her two young playing partners, congratulating them on good shots (of which there were many) even as she concentrated on her own game. At the end of her round the girls took pictures with Juli, and Harper showed her a signed glove that she had brought with her – a glove that Juli gave her at the 2015 ANA Inspiration, which Harper’s parents took her to see when she was just getting into the game.

Unfortunately there was no fairytale ending to the day. Inkster finished 11 strokes out of a qualifying spot (three qualified out of a field of 73), and Kiara Romero, who possesses a swing that is so long and fluid that it begs to be set to music, actually bested her by three stokes—all in the final round. I’m sure that both Harper and Kiara will carry memories of this day with them throughout their lives in golf.

The gold medalist on the day was Benicia’s Kathleen Scavo, who recently concluded her college golf career at the University of Oregon and has embarked on a professional golf career, playing on the Symetra Tour. Second and third places, respectively, were claimed by Kelly Tan, an LPGA player originally from Malaysia, and another Bay Area native, Lucy Li, who won this qualifying event in 2014, when she became the youngest player to have ever qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open.

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.