Park advances in US Women's Amateur

By foxsports
Published

NCAA champion Annie Park won two matches Thursday in the US Women's Amateur to advance to the quarterfinals.

The 18-year-old Park, the Levittown, NY, player coming off her freshman season at Southern California, beat Brittany Fan 2 and 1 in the morning in the second round, and edged Kelly Shon of Port Washington, NY, 1 up in the third round at the Country Club of Charleston.

Park was 3 down after 10 holes against Shon, then won Nos. 11-13 to square the match. Park took a 1-up lead with a par on the par-3 17th, and matched Shon with a par on par-4 18th to end the match.

''On the back nine, I started to get my momentum,'' Park said ''(I thought) `I am just going to hit good shots and get out of there.'''

Park will face Yueer Cindy Feng of Orlando, Fla. Feng beat Casie Cathrea of Livermore, Calif., 1 up.

''The afternoon was really a lot of back and forth,'' Feng said . ''Casie and I really didn't play our best. We kind of left a few out there.''

In the other upper-bracket quarterfinal, Lauren Diaz-Yi of Thousand Oaks, Calif., will play Doris Chen of Taiwan in a rematch of Diaz-Yi's 10-and-9 victory in June in the US Women's Amateur Public Links final.

''Knowing Doris, she's going to want revenge,'' said Diaz-Yi, attempting to become only the third player to win the WAPL and Women's Amateur in the same year.

Diaz-Yi beat Kendall Prince of Lake Oswego, Ore., 4 and 3; and Chen topped Australia's Minjee Lee 2 and 1.

''When we made the turn, I felt like I had finally warmed up,'' Diaz-Yi, an incoming freshman at the University of Virginia, said about her third-round victory. ''I feel like I always seem to turn it around on the back nine. . . . It was pretty intense. A lot of crucial putts I missed here and there, and I gave up strokes like that on the front nine, but I was able to make them up on the back nine.''

In the lower bracket, Katelyn Sepmoree of Tyler, Texas, will face Alison Lee of Valencia, Calif.; and Emma Talley of Princeton, Ky., will meet Su-Hyun Oh of Australia.

Sepmoree beat Aurora Kan of Boothwyn, Pa., 1 up; Lee topped Alexandra Harkins of Crystal Lake, Ill., 3 and 2; Talley beat Mexico's Maria Fassi 2 up; and Oh routed Cammie Gray of Northport, Ala., 5 and 4.