Rianne Malixi and Asterisk Talley are becoming familiar rivals.
Three weeks ago, Malixi, 17, of the Philippines, put an 8-and-7 whipping on Talley, a 15-year-old Californian, to win the scheduled 36-hole U.S. Girls’ Junior final. On Sunday at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the teens squared off again, this time for a bigger USGA prize: the U.S. Women’s Amateur.
Malixi rallied from an early 2-down deficit Sunday, stringing together three consecutive birdies on the back nine to win, 3 and 2. She is the second player to win the Girls’ Junior and Women’s Amateur titles in the same year, after Eun Jeong Seong in 2016.
"It feels so surreal right now," Malixi said. "Just everything just came in so quickly, and it's just an honor."
Malixi found herself 1-down at the midpoint of the scheduled 36-hole finale when play was suspended late Saturday after the first 18 holes of the final was moved ahead a day to avoid a foul weather forecast for Sunday. Talley won the first hole Sunday to go 2-up before Malixi swung the momentum by winning the next four holes to go 2-up.
She stretched the lead to 3-up through 26 holes when Talley bogeyed the par-3 eighth before Talley rallied by winning the next three holes, two via birdie, to square the match. However, Malixi rattled off three consecutive birdies, on holes 13-15, to go 3-up with three to play.
"Just flipped the switch there and just kept on making birdies," Malixi said, "and I was hitting really good shots and then putts happened to drop."
Both players made birdie at the par-5 16th, giving Malixi a 3-and-2 victory.
"Playing against someone like Rianne and getting so far is just amazing," said Talley, who was making her U.S. Women's Amateur debut. "I feel like I can just take away some good parts and some bad parts and work on what I have to work on."
Malixi, who was the runner-up at the 2023 U.S. Girls’ Junior, is only the fourth female to win multiple USGA events in the same year. Talley, who won the Sage Valley Junior Invitational early in the year, was looking for her second USGA title of 2024 after she teamed with Sarah Lim to win the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball in May at Oak Hills in San Antonio, Texas.
Malixi, who has committed to attend Duke next year, will get exemptions into next month's AIG Women's Open, provided that she remains an amateur, and the 2025 U.S. Women’s Open. She also has spots next year in the Augusta National Women's Amateur, the Chevron Championship and the Amundi Evian events provided that she is still an amateur.
Colombia’s Maria José Marin, a sophomore at Arkansas who won the stroke-play medal and No. 1 seed after shooting 4-under 138 to lead the 64 players into match play, forfeited her semifinal match against Talley because of injury. After hitting her second shot at the par-5 13th hole, Marin went to the turf with pain in her left leg and didn’t move for about 15 minutes. Marin was treated by medical personnel and continued to play, halving holes 13 and 14 to remain 1-down, but conceded the match on the 15th hole.
RESULTS
American teen Tyler Mawhinney overcame a rollercoaster start in the final round to win the 119th Canadian Men’s Amateur title on Thursday in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Mawhinney, 16, a high school junior from Fleming Island, Florida, began the final round at Riverside Country Club with a one-stroke lead, and he quickly added to it with a birdie-eagle start. However, a triple bogey at the par-4 third hole opened the way for defending champion Ashton McCulloch of Kingston, Ontario, who birdied the hole, to pull ahead by one. Five players held at least a share of the lead at various points on the back nine before Mawhinney pulled in front for good with a two-putt birdie at the par-5 16th before he added a tap-in birdie after hitting 8-iron at the par-3 17th.
“Don’t have much to say right now,” said Mawhinney, who is a member of the inaugural U.S. national junior team and the reigning AJGA Rolex Tournament of Champions winner. “Kinda sinking in, but proud I could finish it off after some great golf.”
Mawhinney closed with a 3-under 69 for a 15-under 273 total and one-stroke victory over McCulloch. Rylan Shim, a redshirt freshman at Florida from Centreville, Virginia, shared third place with Braxton Kuntz, a Ball State senior from Winnipeg, Manitoba, at 12-under 276. Garrett Rank, an NHL referee who was runner-up in the 2012 U.S. Mid-Amateur, had an apparent third-place finish erased with a disqualification when he signed an incorrect scorecard.
With the victory, Mawhinney earned exemptions into this week’s U.S. Amateur at Hazeltine National in Chaska, Minnesota, and the PGA Tour’s 2025 RBC Canadian Open, which will be played at TPC Toronto.
American Connor Jones and Taiwan’s Huai-Chien “Cindy” Hsu won the respective men’s and women’s titles in the season-long Elite Amateur Golf Series standings.
Jones, a recent graduate student at Colorado State, played in all seven EAGS events, posting top-five finishes at the Sunnehanna, Southern and Pacific Coast amateurs. He is expected to turn pro after this week’s U.S. Amateur, according to the Colorado Golf Association.
Hsu, a University of Texas junior, played in only three of the five tournaments in the inaugural Women’s EAGS, but she made them count. She finished among the top four in each start: second in the Southwestern Women’s Amateur, third in the Women’s Western Amateur and fourth in the Ladies National Golf Association Amateur.
MEN'S STANDINGS / WOMEN'S STANDINGS
West Virginians Davey Jude and Cam Roam birdied the final two holes of regulation play, and then made birdie on the first playoff hole to claim the inaugural Sunnehanna National Four-Ball, played August 5-6 at Sunnehanna Country Club in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Jude and Roam shot 10-under-par 60 in the final round to force a playoff against North Carolinians Brandon Grzywacz and Jacob Golliday, who led through the first two rounds of the 54-hole event. Jude made a 20-foot birdie putt on the par-4 18th to win the playoff.
Jude and Roam shot 21-under 189. John Peterson, the 2011 NCAA champion while at LSU and a former PGA Tour player making his return to amateur golf after being reinstated, teamed with Nick Biesecker to finish third at 192.
According to tournament chairman Derek Hayes, the inaugural event was “phenomenal.”
“We had 44 teams play and had several more on a waiting list,” Hayes said. “Players came from 16 states and Canada, and we had a high-quality field. We could not be more pleased.”
Compiled by Steve Harmon and Jim Nugent