Bandon, Ore. – For the first three days at Bandon Dunes, benign conditions apparently had reduced the Coastal David McLay Kidd design to a pitch and putt.
But on Thursday the winds returned in a flurry – sustained in the high teenagers with a maximum of 30 mph of gusts of wind – and the rinsing machines benefited.
Or, as the children say, out.
That included World No. 1 Kiara Romero, the Uber-Athletic Oregon Junior, who did not even reach Bandons iconic par-4 16th hole in one of her matches on this marathond day. Her 4-and-3 victory over Duke’s Andie Smith in the round of 16 moved Romero to her first American amateur quart finals.
“My game was rolling a bit all day,” said Romero, who shot 4 with only two bogeys in 28 holes.
Oregon head coach Derek Radley, on the Romero bag this week, would agree.
“Dude, this wind, it really doesn’t matter if you get as pure as she,” said Radley. “Her ball flight just holds so tight. It’s just so different.”
Romero closed things after an exhausting piece of Golf that included the last group in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur (she slid to T-7), an impressive late season that included victories at conference and regionals, and then open a record week at the US Women’s (she fired 67 in the final round). She traveled with her family to Lake Tahoe this summer before she invited Good Pal Anna Davis for some practice last week. Romero’s Trek to Bandon Last Friday was the first time she had ever set foot on real estate, which is less than three hours off the campus.
Even with the driver occasionally taken out of her hands, Romero quickly brought the layout of the resort.
So her quarter -final opponent, Lyla Louderbaugh, also has a rising junior in Kansas, who has an athlete in her as a long, former basketball player.
Louderbaugh is in no. 249 in the world, well behind Romero, with whom she played in stroke playing on the US Girls’ Junior 2023 (Romero won that week), but higher than before the last spring, when she enjoyed a breakout -left round at the Arizona State event. Since that closure of 66 in Papago, her first bogey-free round at the university, Louderbaugh has won a NCAA regionally, third ends in the amateur of the Missouri Women and the Amateur of Kansas won.
“She has just been in this zone since Asu and has this sense of confidence about her,” said Kansas head coach Lindsay Kuhle. “I don’t think she will pay a lot of attention to whom she will go tomorrow. She is focused on her own game.”
Added Louderbaugh, who defeated both the Asia Young and Cal State amateur champion Katelyn Kong in 2027 on Thursday: “I was able to really control my game in a way that I really like when I am on the golf course.”
Romero and Louderbaugh T -shirt at 1:50 PM Pacific, where the winner gets the victorial from incoming northwestern first -year student Arianna Lau and Michigan State Grad Brooke Biermann. Everything that Lau has done is the medal winner and title defender Rianne Malixi and Wake Grads Emilia Doran and Carolina Chacarra. Biermann played 41 holes on Thursday when both games went to extras.
On the other side of the bracket is a player with the same firepower to Romero. South Carolina Second -year Eila Galitsky is perhaps the longest amateur for women in the world, because she wears 105 MPH Swing and more than 270 meters. Galitsky in sixth place in the world, Galitsky won her second career -college event last spring in a play about Lottie Woad, which she also beat in Singles this year in the Patsy Hankins trophy.
Galitsky, who lost her first two holes to Texas A&M first-year Natalie Yen on Thursday afternoon, joked that she loves Bandon because of the “90-year wide fairways”. She is also ok with the wind; Just like Romero, a lot is needed to influence her ball.
“I think it would be super boring if everyone is used to, you know, Fairway, Green, the putt for Birdie,” said Galitsky. “This is like, ok, you hit the fairway. You have to flee your second shot. It is 100 meters. You almost play as 140 meters.
“It’s much more thinking, and it’s much more fun.”
Speaking of fun, it may not be nicer than Galitsky versus Stanford senior Megha Ganne on Friday. Ganne, a double first team All-American, demonstrably had the most difficult series of opponents in Auburn’s Anna Davis and the Kary Hollenbaugh by Ohio on Thursday. This is Ganne’s first quarter -final appearance since she went on to the semi -finals on the American amateur 2019.
“I think one thing I remember to be in the semi -final is as if you are knocking down this first round of 64, the feeling that I can do that again and again,” said Ganne. “That is a feeling that I had when I was on my way, I tried to recreate that and remember that feeling that I had.”
Tel Ganne among those who hope the wind will come. She will especially be satisfied with Friday’s prediction, which may see even more difficult circumstances.
“I thrive a little more in those circumstances compared to normal circumstances,” said Ganne. “So hopefully I will stay with it.”
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