Kylie Chong, a 19-year-old sophomore at USC, entered the final round of the 11th SCGA Women’s Amateur Championship tied for the top spot and had nine players within five shots of her shared lead. One of the pursuers, Janae Leovao, playing in the final threesome with Chong, pulled even by just the third hole after she birdied the iconic, signature par 3.
Leovao would gain sole possession of the lead two holes later when Chong made her first bogey since her opening round on Monday.
Leovao and Chong quickly turned the crowded leaderboard into a two-horse race at the expense of a stagnant group chasing them and two early bogeys and a double by their third playing partner, Kelsey Kim, who started the final round with a share of the lead.
When Chong birdied the ninth hole, after a brilliant up-and-down from a greenside bunker, she caught Leovao and set up a back nine of stroke play that felt much more like a head-to-head match with the highest stakes.
Leovao was a perfect 9 for 9 in greens hit on the front side but missed the opening two on the back and made her first bogey on no. 11. Chong would regain the lead but only for a moment as Leovao answered with a kick-in birdie set up by a flagged approach on no. 12 that threatened to go in.
Leovao, now tied for the lead, somehow bested her second shot on no. 12 with a heroic 250-yard 3 wood that barely ran through the back of the green on the par 5 thirteenth. A two-putt birdie from her changed the lead yet again and now it was Leovao at five-under with a one-shot advantage over Chong.
The two would trade pars on no. 14 before Leovao’s hooked tee shot on no. 15 led to a sloppy bogey at a very inopportune time. What could have been a two-shot swing netted out as another tie at the top when Chong’s birdie putt burned the edge and came to rest just inches from the cup.
With her dad on the bag and USC Women’s Golf Coach, Justin Silverstein cheering her on, Chong confidently walked to the par 3 sixteenth hole with a share of lead and just three holes to play. Both players would make par, and it was off to no. 17 where an unlikely sequence of events broke the tie for good.
While both Chong and Leovao were playing good golf and under par, respectively, for the day, neither one of them were driving the ball well. Both players pegged it at no. 17 with just six fairways hit and neither of them found the short grass on the penultimate hole.
Leovao went into a fairway bunker and Chong blocked one far right into the infamous rough of Torrey South. Leovao’s second shot came up short of the green and Chong went way long under a tree closer to the eighteenth tee box than the seventeenth green. Leovao’s third was a chip that ran out too much behind the flag and couldn’t be putted as it nestled into the second cut. Meanwhile, Chong was forced to play a low shot into the back hill of the green with hopes of deadening the speed and popping up onto the dance floor. The aforementioned rough of Torry South does not usually permit these kinds of plays and Chong’s third shot was swallowed up before it reached the putting surface.
Still away and scrambling for what looked like a tough bogey, Chong played a perfect flop shot that barely landed on the green and dramatically rolled out 20 feet directly into the heart of the cup for one of the most improbable pars you can make from that spot on the golf course. What looked like a five or a six was an otherworldly clutch four and the crowd let her hear about it, too, with gasps and cheers.
For all the great golf shots that both Leovao and Chong racked up during the final round, this one trumped them all. It wasn’t just that the shot was wildly difficult. It was that she pulled it off when and how she did.
Leovao, in what felt like a match play situation, tried to equal her opponent with a chip-in of her own, but it came up just short and was tapped-in for a bogey.
But the drama wasn’t over. Chong, playing first, bombed one down the middle of the par 5 eighteenth hole and Leovao did, too. Leovao, further from the hole and likely needing eagle, was forced to go for the green in two. Given what she did at no. 13, she knew she was capable of the shot. But it wasn’t meant to be this time. Leovao cleared the one and only water hazard on the course but landed on the front side hill between the green and the pond and watched as her ball bounced back into the drink. It was a noble effort and a shot she had to play. And she was a mere couple of feet from pulling it off.
Chong laid up to 75 yards and then threw a wedge shot right at the flag and stuck it to a foot. The championship was locked up and Chong finished it with her four best swings of the day starting with that unforgettable hole-out on no. 17.
Chong didn’t even need to wait for her playing partners to finish. She walked up to ball, didn’t mark it, and tapped it in, stamping her victory with a no-doubt birdie on the heels of an all-time highlight reel par.
Chong was the deserving champion. But the battle between her and Leovao made everyone in attendance a winner.
