Powered by three eagles in the final round, Thailand native Thanana Kotchasanmanee captured the Ladies National Golf Association Amateur title on Thursday at Hot Springs (Arkansas) Country Club’s Park Course. The 17-year-old Kotchasanmanee closed with a 6-under 66 to erase a one-stroke deficit to start the final round and post a two-stroke victory at 11-under 205.
“I was just doing my own thing, and my own job,” she said. “I played shot by shot. I just kept smiling and not thinking about anything else. I was just playing golf and having fun with it.”
Kotchasanmanee eagled the par-4 eighth hole and then went 5-under on a three-hole stretch on the back nine, sparked by eagles at the back-to-back par-5s, the 12th and 13th holes, to pull away. Bogeys at Nos. 14 and 15 proved to be of little consequence as she parred the final three holes.
Bentley Cotton of Austin, Texas, and Laney Frye of Nicholasville, Kentucky, shared second place at 9-under 207.
Kotchasanmanee, who is No. 20 in the Rolex AJGA Rankings, advanced to the round of 32 in the recent U.S. Girls’ Junior. A rising high school senior in Rome, Georgia, she has verbally committed to enroll at Princeton University in the fall of 2025.
The LNGA Amateur was the fifth and final tournament in the inaugural year of the Women’s Elite Amateur Golf Series. Taiwan’s Huai-Chien “Cindy” Hsu, who tied for fourth in the LNGA Amateur, clipped American Molly Smith by 0.8129 of a point to claim the series-long Women’s Cup title. Hsu is a rising junior at the University of Texas who claimed the individual title at the 2023 World Amateur Team Championship.
RESULTS
Jim Nugent