Hot Springs, Virginia, United States: Two of the most seasoned competitors in the field will square off for the 63rd US Senior Women’s Amateur title.
With dozens of USGA appearances between them, tomorrow’s final guarantees that for one of them, a long-awaited moment will finally arrive when they lift the trophy at The Omni Homestead Resort.
The finalists are 63-year-old Australian Sue Wooster, making her fourth appearance in this championship’s final and 12th appearance overall in the event, and 51-year-old American Dawn Woodard, who is competing in her 35th USGA event but her first championship match.
Wooster, runner-up in this event in 2018, 2019 and 2022, will have an opportunity to claim a long-awaited title after a 19-hole semi-final victory over 2023 champion Sarah Gallagher.
The unique closing stretch that goes par 3-5-5-3 created drama befitting the match. Wooster made par on 15 to tie the match, birdied 16 to go one-up before Gallagher once again brought the match level with a par on 17. A clutch bunker shot on 18 that ended up two feet from the hole kept Gallagher alive, and after tying 18 with two pars, the competitors went to the par-five 16th for their first play-off hole. There, Wooster put her third to a few feet for a tap-in birdie; Gallagher missed her 10-footer to extend the match.
“It feels amazing,” said Wooster, who swept aside American Kristyl Sunderman 6&4 in the morning quarter-finals. “Whether I win tomorrow or I lose, I’m 63 years old and I’ve been in three finals and lost all of them. To be honest, I never thought I would make another one. I haven’t been playing that good this year, and something just clicked a couple of weeks ago. I started to get in a groove, and I guess here I am. I can’t believe it.
“I’m proud of my mental game. I’ve really been struggling with it. I was going to give up tournament golf because I had so much anxiety, nerves and tension, and I just surrendered to it a couple weeks ago. You get nerves, you get tension, you’re a normal human being. Don’t fight it. Just let it happen. I kind of had a release and since then I’ve been playing good.”
In a back-and-forth battle in the other semi-final match, Woodard dramatically came out on top over Shelly Stouffer. Having gone two-down after the first four holes, Woodard won the difficult par-five fifth before quickly going two-down again. Birdies on eight and 10, however, kept her in the match.
Canadian Stouffer, the 2022 champion, played like she’d been there before through the 12th, where she regained a two-up lead. Yet Woodard would not go away, and with a par to win 14 and a birdie on 16, she tied the match. It came down to the 18th, a par-three of 147 yards, where Woodard closed the match out with a par to Stouffer’s bogey.
“It was a long day of golf.” said Woodard. “I mean, it was both matches. Both players were tough. Stefani [Markovich] played awesome this morning. Then this afternoon, Shelly. I could tell we were both getting a little tired. We both just kind of gave a few away back and forth, and every time I could get close, I felt like I shot myself in the foot somewhere. But it’s just a grind at this point. It’s such a great golf course and you know you’re going to have some opportunities there.”
The penultimate day also featured a quarter-final match between two former champions: Australian Nadene Gole, who won at Broadmoor Golf Club in Seattle last year, and Stouffer, who won at Anchorage Golf Course in Alaska in 2022.
The duel lived up to the hype. Stouffer struck first with a win on the second hole, but Gole answered by taking five and six. Unfazed, Stouffer surged ahead with a blistering stretch of four consecutive wins from seven through 10, only to see Gole halt the run with a victory at the par-three 11th.
A birdie at 14 pulled Gole within one, but Stouffer responded immediately, reclaiming a two-up lead with a birdie at the par-three 15th. Gole made one last charge with a birdie at 17, but the pair matched birdies on the closing hole, securing a hard-fought one-up triumph for Stouffer.
Asked what was her favourite part of the week, Gole said: “I think coming back and seeing the girls. When you win the championship, there’s no one around. Often, they’ve left and had to go home, and I think having the players dinner is a really special thing. I said if there’s an equivalent to a Masters dinner, it’s that moment, because we don’t have anything like that anywhere else. It was really special to be able to speak in front of everyone and just catch up with people.”