Dominant Hou Secures Semi-Final Place

New York, United States: Making light of a nagging injury, Vivian Hou Yu-chiang swept into the semi-finals at the 121st US Women’s Amateur Championship.

Playing with a torn labrum in her left hip, the 20-year-old from Chinese Taipei produced a dominant performance to oust American Cara Heisterkamp 4 and 3 in the quarter-finals at Westchester Country Club.

The University of Arizona All-American will now take on Argentinian left-hander Valentina Rossi in Saturday’s semi-finals.

The winner of that contest will then take on either University of Kentucky junior Jensen Castle or world number two and reigning NCAA champion Rachel Heck in Sunday’s 36-hole final.

To rest her hip, Hou had not played a competitive event since the NCAAs in late May. This is her first US Women’s Amateur.

“I think about my injury [and] actually it went okay,” said Hou, who is looking to join Jim Furyk (US Senior Open) and Annika Sorenstam (US Senior Women’s Open) as 2021 USGA champions from the University of Arizona.

“I was planning to do surgery this summer, but after last season I discussed with my trainer and my [college] coach [Laura Ianello] and we just decided not to and focus more on PT (physical therapy) and doing all the exercise instead of surgery,” added Hou.

Against Heisterkamp, Hou took control early, winning three of the first six holes. The 2020 Women’s Golf Coaches Association Freshman of the Year went on to close out the high school sophomore with a birdie on 15.

For Australian Emily Mahar and Thai Kan Bunnabodee, their progress was halted at the quarter-final stage.

Mahar, who qualified for the 2021 US Women’s Open then got married a week later, was comprehensively beaten by Castle, going down 6 and 5.

Purdue University sophomore Kan was eliminated 3 and 2 by Heck.

The third player to sweep conference, regional and NCAA individual honours in women’s college history, Heck shook off the feisty 19-year-old Kan on the back nine after tying the match with a birdie on the par-five ninth.

Heck played three-under-par golf – with match play concessions – over the final seven holes, including a birdie-two on the 201-yard 16th hole. Two more wins and Heck can join Vicki Goetze (1992) as the second player to win the NCAA and US Women’s Amateur titles in the same year.