Canada’s Judith Kyrinis posted a 1-over-par 145 total (75-70) at Virginia’s Omni Homestead Resort to earn medalist honors at the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur.
Kyrinis, the 2017 champion who captured the 2025 Canadian Women’s Mid-Amateur last month in a playoff, leaned on her experience to separate herself by one stroke.
“I’m working on learning the golf course better,” Kyrinis said. “I hit a lot of fairways, which is always good around here. I improved on some of the course management from yesterday and the putter finally got hot. I could feel the speed of the greens and could see the lines a little bit better.”
Kyrinis slipped by Amber Marsh Elliott, 1 up, in the round of 64 before bowing out with a 3-and-2 loss to Lisa McGill.
Nadene Gole made an impressive defense of her 2024 title. She finished T4 in stroke-play qualifying and never saw the 17th hole in her opening two matches.
In the round of 16, the 56-year-old Australian outlasted Ellen Port in a tightly contested match. Port, who has four U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur titles to go along with three U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur victories, led by two holes early, but Gole clawed back by winning the eighth and 13th holes to tie the match, then seized momentum with a win at the 14th. Another victory at the 15th gave her a 2-up cushion, but Port wasn’t done, cutting the deficit in half with a clutch win on the 16th. Gole advanced to the quarterfinals by winning the 18th with a steady par to seal the match, 2 up.
“Today’s been a game of patience. It’s hard to explain, but you know, it’s a long day,” said Gole, who also defeated Port in a round of 32 match in 2023. “Ellen’s always going to be a tough match; she’s a great competitor. We started off a bit scrappy. She flew some good putts in there in the end, and I got some good ones, so I just got her there on the last hole.”
In the quarterfinals, Gole lost, 1 down, to Shelly Stouffer, the 2022 champion whom she had defeated in last year’s final.
Kathy Hartwiger of Pinehurst, North Carolina, who won the R&A Women’s Amateur Championship in July at Walton Heath in England, fell short in her bid to become the third player to win senior women’s titles on both sides of the Atlantic in the same year. Gole accomplished the feat in 2024 and Lara Tennant did it in 2019.
After qualifying for match play as the No. 8 seed, Hartwiger built a 3-up lead through seven holes of her opening match but ultimately fell to Tracy Eakin of Ireland, 1 down.
Port, 63, marked her 75th USGA championship start at the Homestead. She has an amazing 32-8 match-play record in the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. Meanwhile, Brenda Corrie Kuehn, 60, played in her 62nd USGA championship.
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Staff and wire reports