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Ashley Lam Tops Kelsey Chugg in 36-Hole Final

In the middle of the afternoon round of the biggest golf match of her life, Ashley Lam bobbed her head and mouthed the words of a Bruno Mars song emanating from the nearby pool of Oakridge Country Club.

Nine holes and ninety minutes later, approaching that part of the property in Farmington, Lam found herself needing to summon that same level of coolness to conclude the 120th Utah Women’s State Amateur Championship. Judging by the pitching wedge shot from the No. 18 fairway that stopped near the hole and led to a conceded, winning birdie, she succeeded.

Westminster University junior Ashley Lam kept “the vibes high” on her way to winning the 120th Utah Women’s State Amateur.

The enduring soundtrack of a 1-up victory over six-time champion Kelsey Chugg also includes some tough words from the winner’s older brother/caddie, Sean Lam: “Just my brother telling me to lock in and stop being a little baby.

That’s partly how the Westminster University junior managed to regroup, overcoming the shock of losing a 3-up lead in a span of four holes and suddenly being tied, going to the 36th hole of the day.

The silent sing-along after the tee shot on No. 10 was a case of Lam’s figuring she “might as well keep the vibes high and good,” she said. “I tried to keep cool, keep my composure through the whole thing. I said this before, I’ve played a lot of golf, so I feel like I’ve been through a lot of pressure and just being able to handle the pressure is pretty normal to me.”

One of those moments was the Utah Junior Golf Association’s 2024 Utah State Junior Amateur in Park City. Lam, having graduated from Skyline High School, beat Ali Mulhall for the Girls 15-18. That was the same summer when Mulhall went to the last hole of the Women’s State Am final tied with Chugg, whose par resulted in her sixth title. Lam reached the semifinals last July at Wasatch Mountain GC and has won six tournaments for Westminster’s NCAA Division II program, including two Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference championships.

Six-time champion Kelsey Chugg is now 45-9 in Women’s State Amateur matches since 2011.

Chugg, 35, remains in a five-way tie for No. 2 all-time in Women’s State Am titles, trailing eight-time champion Ben Nelson.

Chugg never led Lam, in the second year since the Utah Golf Association’s move to a 36-hole final in this modern match-play era of the historic tournament. The scorecards had credited Chugg with playing the 65 holes of her first four matches in 8 under par. But she shot 74-77 in the final to Lam’s 74-73.

She tied Lam on four occasions and gave herself a chance to complete an improbable comeback, only to hit an errant drive on No. 18 and eventually miss a bogey putt before conceding the match. In the middle of the afternoon, when Lam was upbeat, Chugg was repeatedly missing key putts and inevitably thinking that a seventh title was not in her immediate future.

“Yeah, I thought that multiple times: ‘It was not my day,’ to be honest,” she said. “I’m just proud of myself for digging deep, because I could have given up when she went 3 up … (I) got a little down on myself. I’m proud of myself for sticking it through.”

Chugg is 45-9 in Women’s State Am matches since 2011 (she missed the 2019 event), with eight appearances in the finals, having lost to Grace Summerhays in 2020. Lam is the first of those eight opponents who’s both a Utah high school graduate and Utah collegiate golfer. She’s the first champion who fits that description since Lila Galea’i of Lehi/BYU at Oakridge in 2021. Kerstin Fotu (2019) of Lone Peak/BYU is the only other such winner of the past 20 years.

Champion Ashley Lam accepts the Utah Women’s State Amateur trophy from UGA President Tina Mathieu following her victory at Oakridge Country Club.

Lam’s victory is monumental for Westminster’s athletic program and meaningful to a big group of friends, relatives and members of Utah’s Asian-American community, including Nuny Khamken, a former Senior Women’s State Amateur champion.

Lam’s display of coolness lasted until the awards presentation and subsequent interviews, as tears framed her responses. She described herself as “overwhelmed, with really a lot of emotion; such a crazy experience.”

The gallery played into all of that. “There’s just so much support around,” Lam said. “You can, like, feel it.”

Lam’s victory earned her a coveted exemption into the 2026 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship.

Lam received the UGA’s exemption into the U.S. Women’s Amateur, Aug. 4-9 in Tennessee.

120th Utah Women’s State Amateur recap feature written by Fairway Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe. Photography by Fairways Media/Randy Dodson and Garrit Johnson.