Bandon, Oregon, United States: Rianne Malixi is aiming to put months of frustration behind her when she commences her bid for a second successive US Women’s Amateur title at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort tomorrow.
Having endured a season disrupted by injuries, the 18-year-old standout from the Philippines, who will attend Duke University in the fall, is hoping to enjoy a pain-free week at the spectacular Bandon Dunes Course that is perched on a high bluff above the Pacific Ocean.
In a memorable 2024 campaign, Malixi etched her name into the record books by becoming only the second player in USGA history to win both the US Women’s Amateur and the US Girls’ Junior in the same year, following Korean Seong Eun-jeong in 2016.
At the 2024 US Girls’ Junior, the Manila native took down American Asterisk Talley 8&7, a historic margin of victory for the championship since it went to a 36-hole final in 2006, making 14 birdies against no bogeys over the 29 holes. She also defeated Talley in the Women’s Amateur final at Southern Hills Country Club.
Malixi was also victorious at the 2024 Women’s Australian Master of the Amateurs and finished runner-up at the 2024 Junior Invitational at Sage Valley ahead of her back-to-back USGA victories.
During her 2025 season, she has competed in the US Women’s Open Presented by Ally and the Amundi Evian Championship, but had to skip the Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific (WAAP) in Vietnam in March and April’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur due to a back injury.
Joining Malixi at Bandon Dunes is a powerful Asia-Pacific contingent which includes four members of the Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation (APGC) team that thrashed the European Golf Association in January’s Solheim Cup-style Patsy Hankins Trophy in the United Arab Emirates – Thai Eila Galitsky, Chinese Taipei’s Cindy Hsu Huai-chien, Japan’s Mamika Shinchi and Hong Kong’s Arianna Lau.
Galitsky is currently seventh in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), two spots ahead of Malixi. Also in the WAGR’s top-50 are Korean Oh Soo-min (12th), Hsu (36th), China’s Xu Ying (37th), Korean Park Seo-jin (38th), Shinchi (48th) and Lau (50th).
Triumphant at the WAAP in 2023, Galitsky had the distinction of winning her Patsy Hankins Trophy singles match against England’s Lottie Woad, then number one in the WAGR. Woad relinquished her amateur status last month and won on her maiden professional outing at the ISPS Handa Scottish Women’s Open last week.
Other notable Asia-Pacific players in the starting field at Bandon Dunes are Japan’s Mana Yoshizaki (72nd in the WAGR), Yuka Nishina (188th) and Rina Kawasaki (722nd); Australians Jazy Roberts (79th), Ella Scaysbrook (110th) and Momo Sugiyama (166th); Thais Pimchompoo Chaisilprungruang (81st) and Pimmada Nena Wongthanavimok (108th); China’s Liu Yujie (106th); Indian Sneha Sharan (440th); Hong Kong Wu Siu-ue (450th) and Chinese Taipei’s Hsieh Ping-hua (258th) and Lin Jie-en (346th), at 14 the championship's youngest participant.
Fittingly, Malixi will be part of the marquee group in the opening round, alongside American Kiara Romero, who has assumed number one spot in the WAGR from Woad, and WAGR number 22 Aphrodite Deng of Canada who defeated Singapore’s Chen Xingtong in the final of the US Girls’ Junior a fortnight ago.
A good omen for the Asian players this week is that the last USGA event to be staged at Bandon Dunes was won by China’s Ding Wenyi, at the 2022 US Junior Amateur.
*A starting field of 156 players is competing in the US Women’s Amateur. Following two 18-hole rounds at stroke play (August 4-5), the field will be cut to the low 64 players for match play. Five 18-hole rounds of match play will determine the finalists who then will square off in a 36-hole championship match on Sunday (August 10).
