After capturing medalist honors for low score in the stroke play portion of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship, Cheyenne Woods went out and promptly took care of business in her first match play event on Wednesday.
Woods, whose uncle Tiger was medalist in three USGA events, tested the confidence she gained with her 2-under 141 stroke play win by notching a 4&3 victory over Ashley Edwards on the 6,098-yard Old Macdonald layout at Bandon Dunes in Bandon, Ore. She will play 14-year-old Bethany Wu in Thursday’s second round of match play at Bandon Trails.
“I think going into match play just knowing I am the No. 1 seed and played this course the best feels good,” Woods told Golfweek’s Beth Ann Baldry after taking first place in stroke play. Runner-up Emile Burger finished four shots behind Woods.
Like her uncle, Woods, a 20-year-old senior at Wake Forest, has been working with her long-time coach Mike LaBauve to tweak her swing. She said her short game helped get her to the top of the stroke-play qualifying round.
“My lag putting is what saved me,” Woods said, according to the USGA. “I didn’t have a par putt over 3 feet.”
The 2011 Atlantic Coast Conference title winner joined her uncle in the USGA medalist winner’s circle. Tiger Woods took medalist honors at the 1991 and 1992 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship and the 1996 U.S. Amateur Championship. He went on to win all three events.
Low score was certainly Cheyenne Woods’ aim as she took on a golf course she had never played in an event in which she had never competed.
“Going into today, I definitely was [thinking about medalist],” Woods told the USGA. “That was something that was on my mind going through the round. I really wanted to take advantage of every shot, even if I’d already been into match play since I played really well yesterday.
“I wanted to make every birdie I could or save every par just because I wanted that medalist title,” she said, sound every bit like a certain other play-to-win golfer named Woods.
Wednesday’s first round of match play was at Old Macdonald. Bandon Trails will host the second and third rounds on Thursday. The quarter- and semifinal matches on Friday and the 36-hole championship final will be Sunday, with all contests taking place at Old Macdonald.
The younger Woods hopes to compete in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Rhode Island Country Club later this summer. Should she win both events, she would be the first to do so since Jennifer Song captured both titles in 2009. Song was victorious in the WAPL event that took place at Massachusetts’ Red Tail Golf Club.
(Photo: Michael Cohen/Getty Images)
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out on the Waggle Room, Boston Golf Examiner, National Golf Examiner, and GottaGoGolf websites. You may also follow Kay on Twitter @golfexaminer.)
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