Ina Kim-Schaad won the 2025 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship for the second time on Thursday, drilling an 18-foot putt on the fifth extra hole of Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Dunes Course to earn a dramatic victory over her opponent, Hanley Long. The 23-hole final match was the longest in U.S. Women’s Mid-Am history.
At 42 years old, Kim-Schaad is a veteran of the USGA event and this year marks her 20th appearance in the USGA Championship. With the win, she became the fourth-oldest ever champion at the US Women’s Mid-Am, and the first woman to win the Mid-Am twice since Julia Potter-Bobb in 2016. Kim-Schaad won her first Mid-Am title in 2019 at Forest Highlands Golf Club in Flagstaff, Ariz.
“I’m honestly still overwhelmed with emotions,” Kim-Schaad said Thursday. “I really love this place, and my husband and I got married in Carmel. To do it in such a special place, a golf course, with my family here and my husband on the bag, his birthday week, and for the second time it’s like there’s not even enough language to describe all the feelings I’m feeling.”
Kim-Schaad fired stroke play rounds of 72-79 (seven over) to take the 45th seed in the match play round of 64. She won her first match by 1; her Round of 32 match 2 and 1, her Round of 16 match 3 and 2, her quarterfinal match 3 and 1, and her semifinal match 2 and 1, in which she eliminated No. 1 seed Katherine Zhu.
In the final match against Long, 27, Kim-Schaad won the first hole and never trailed, but Long managed to tie the match four times – including on the 17th hole. Kim-Schaad eventually won with a dramatic birdie on the fifth extra hole.
“Downhill side-to-side ticklers are not my specialty, but I just wanted to give it a shot,” Kim-Schaad said. “I thought if I nested it there and put two, [Long] would get a very difficult par anyway. My sincere intention was to nest it up there and give it a chance, but it just happened to fall to the ground.”
“It was an absolute battle out there all day,” Long said. “Hats off to our champion. She absolutely crushed it today. Honestly, I’m so proud of my perseverance and determination throughout the day, keeping my head up and never giving up.”
With the win, Kim-Schaad earns an exemption into the next 10 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championships, the 2026 and 2027 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championships and the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open Championship at Riviera Country Club.
The 2026 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship will be played at Montclair Golf Club in West Orange, NJ, September 29 through October. 3.
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