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120th Utah Women’s State Amateur: 6-time champion Chugg, 1st-time finalist Lam set up 36-hole final
Plenty of upsets dotted match play at the 120th Utah Women’s State Amateur, but an all-too-familiar name emerged Wednesday ahead of the championship.
Six-time champion Kelsey Chugg collected a 2 and 1 win over New Mexico State golfer Rylee Salome, while Westminster standout Ashley Lam held off Utah Tech’s Samantha Phelan in a 19-hole semifinal to set up Thursday’s 36-hole championship at Oakridge Country Club.
Westminster’s Ashley Lam
Lam trailed early in her semifinal, with Phelan taking a 1-up lead at the turn. The Griffins’ rising junior who won back-to-back Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference individual titles rallied with a pair of birdies through the first three holes of the back nine.
Phelan refused to go away, taking a 1-up edge through 16 before Lam responded at No. 17 and put the match away with a par-save on the first extra hole.
“I just had to play golf; there wasn’t much to it,” said Lam, the former Skyline High star. “If you think too much, I think it starts getting to your head. I feel like I’ve played enough golf to where I feel pretty calm on the course.
“If you play your best game, there’s nothing more you can do.”
It’s the first women’s amateur final in Lam’s career, and it’ll come against a pillar of Utah golf: a mid-amateur superstar in Chugg who clinched her sixth women’s amateur title two years ago.
“I think my game is trending,” said Lam, who was making her second-straight women’s amateur semifinal appearance. “During the season, I had a bit of a swing that didn’t feel super well. But I’ve been working on it, and being able to play with Kelsey will be a good opportunity. She’s won so many of these tournaments.”
After two days of upsets that included BYU golfer Ava Schroeder upsetting medalist Braylyn Bayer from Weber State and last year’s champion Arden Louchheim falling to recent Utah Valley transfer Adley Nelson in the in the Round of 32, eight golfers remained for Wednesday’s semifinals after blockbuster quarterfinal.
Six time Women’s State Amateur champion, Kelsey Chugg
Chugg birdied the eighth and ninth holes to take a 2-up lead through nine after Salome evened the match on the par-5 sixth.
But Chugg had the momentum, and scarcely let up en route to her eighth women’s amateur final in 15 tournament appearances, as noted by Fairways Media’s Kurt Kragthorpe.
“I just felt like I was hitting it pretty good through that stretch,” Chugg said. “It helped to get a head of it a little bit, and hold on.”
Salome pulled one back on No. 13, then birdied the par-3 15th to pull within one. But Chugg came back with an impressive par-save on No. 16 before clinching the match on the 17th green.
“It was nice to see that one go in on 16,” Chugg said. “It was a battle.”
Photography provided by Fairways Media/Randy Dodson and Garrit Johnson.