Lucy Li, 12, of Redwood City, Calif., is the championship’s youngest competitor.
There are also three 13-year-olds in the field: Morgan Goldstein, of Las Vegas, Nev.; and partners Briana Chacon, of Whittier, Calif., and Hannah Zeman, of Ontario, Calif., who comprise the youngest team in the field with a combined age of 26.
The championship’s oldest competitor is 70-year-old Taffy Brower, of Boynton Beach, Fla. Her partner, Kitty Colliflower, of Rochester, N.Y., is 62 years old, making the duo the oldest team in the field with a combined age of 132.
With an age difference of 36 years, teammates Rachel Carpenter, 24, of St. Simons Island, Ga., and Dr. Angela Stewart, 60, of Greenville, N.C., have the largest age difference in the field.
The average age of the Women’s Amateur Four-Ball competitors is 33.7 years old.
There are four countries represented in the championship: Canada, Mexico, the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America.
There are 29 states represented in the championship: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington. The District of Columbia is also represented.
There are four USGA individual champions in the field:
• Mina Hardin, 54, of Fort Worth, Texas (2010 Senior Women’s Amateur)
• Amber Marsh Elliott, 46, of Greensboro, N.C. (2003 Women’s Mid-Amateur)
• Martha Leach, 53, of Hebron, Ky. (2009 Women’s Mid-Amateur)
• Meghan Stasi, 36, of Oakland Park, Fla. (2006, 2007, 2010, 2012 Women’s Mid-Amateur)
There are five USGA runners-up in the field:
• Mina Hardin (2001 Women’s Mid-Amateur; 2011 Senior Women’s Amateur)
• Martha Leach (2011 Women’s Mid-Amateur)
• Sue Billek Nyhus, 52, of Salt Lake City, Utah (1999 Women’s Amateur Public Links)
• Carol Robertson, 31, of Blacksburg, Va. (2010 Women’s Mid-Amateur)
• Thuhashini Selvaratnam, 38, of Cave Creek, Ariz. (2006 Women’s Mid-Amateur)
There are four members of victorious USGA Women’s State Teams in the field:
• Taffy Brower (Florida, 1999)
• Tara Fleming, 48, of Jersey City, N.J. (New Jersey, 2013)
• Thuhashini Selvaratnam (Arizona, 2007)
• Lynn Thompson, 57, of Cincinnati, Ohio (Ohio, 2003)
Meghan Stasi played on the victorious 2008 USA Curtis Cup Team.
There are three sister-sister teams in the field:
• Catherine Dolan, 25, of Ballwin, Mo., and Kelly Hutchison, 33, of St. Louis, Mo.
• Margaret Gilley, 24, and Elizabeth Gilley Payne, 38, both of Flossmoor, Ill.
• Camilla Vik, 20, and Susana Vik, 16, both of Greenwich, Conn.
There is one mother-daughter team in the field:
• Martha Leach and Madison Gerstle, 28, of Cincinnati, Ohio
Six players in the field hail from the Pacific Northwest:
• Shawn Farmer, 31, of Bellevue, Wash.
• Debbie Friede, 55, of Washougal, Wash.
• Kelly Gardner, 32, of Gig Harbor, Wash.
• Christina Proteau, 32, of Port Alberni, British Columbia, Canada
• Gigi Stoll, 18, of Portland, Ore.
• Kim Titus, 51, of Gig Harbor, Wash.
Several players in the field will attend or have attended college in the Pacific Northwest:
• Eastern Washington University
o Shawn Farmer
o Kelly Gardner
• University of Oregon
o Barbara Byrnes, 60, of Mesa, Ariz.
o Kathleen Scavo, 17, of Benicia, Calif.
• University of Washington
o Ellen Takada, 17, of Irvine, Calif.
• Washington State University
o Kim Titus
Three players in the field competed in the 2011 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship at Bandon Dunes on the Old Macdonald and Bandon Trails courses:
• Catherine Dolan (lost in the third round of match play)
• Thuhashini Selvaratnam (missed the cut)
• Angel Yin, 16, of Arcadia, Calif. (lost in the third round of match play)
General Player Notes
Barbara Byrnes, 60, of Mesa, Ariz., and Donna Marden, 59, of Tucson, Ariz.
Byrnes played tennis at the University of Oregon. Since picking up golf at age 38, she has been named Arizona Senior Player of the Year four times (2004, 2005, 2006 and 2008) and has played in 16 USGA championships. Marden is playing in her first USGA championship since the 2005 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur.
Rachel Carpenter, 24, of St. Simons Island, Ga., and Dr. Angela Stewart, 60, of Greenville, N.C.
Carpenter is the daughter of Jeffrey and Wendi Carpenter, both retired EC-130 pilots for the United States Navy. Her mother, Wendi, who served for 34 years, was the first woman aviator to attain the rank of rear admiral. Dr. Stewart is a physician and founder of Our Children’s Clinic in Winterville, N.C., a full-service medical clinic providing comprehensive pediatric healthcare from birth to adolescence. She won the 2011 North Carolina Women’s Senior Amateur, becoming the first African American to win a Carolinas Golf Association championship. In 2012, her oral history was documented for the USGA Museum.
Angela Collins, 50, of Glendale, Calif., and Kathy Kurata, 54, of Pasadena, Calif.
Collins played volleyball at Cal State-Northridge under her maiden name of Brinton, helping her team win the 1987 NCAA Division II national championship. She started playing golf at age 37. Kurata trained in Japanese classical dance as a child and received her professional title at age 18.
Sarah Davison, 35, of Choudrant, La., and Lacy Shelton, 35, of Overland Park, Kan.
Davison and Shelton were teammates at the University of Alabama from 1998-2002. Davison, who reached the semifinals of the 1997 U.S. Girls’ Junior under her maiden name of Johnston, won the 2013 Louisiana Women’s Amateur, having previously taken the title in 2009. Shelton is an avid runner, having completed two marathons and numerous half-marathons.
Catherine Dolan, 25, of Ballwin, Mo., and Kelly Hutchison, 33, of St. Louis, Mo.
Dolan and Hutchison are one of three sister teams in the championship. Dolan won the 2011 and 2013 Missouri Women’s Amateur Championships, and was the runner-up in 2012 to six-time USGA champion and 2014 USA Curtis Cup Team Captain Ellen Port. Dolan won the Metropolitan Amateur Golf Association’s 2013 Women’s Amateur, and was the runner-up to Port in 2014.
Amber Marsh Elliott, 46, of Greensboro, N.C., and Katie Miller, 29, of Jeannette, Pa.
Marsh Elliott was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, just three years after winning the 2003 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur. At the time of her diagnosis, her son, Justin, was 17 months old. Following a bi-lateral mastectomy, she was given a clean bill of health. Miller, who had her amateur status reinstated in 2013, reached the third round of the 2014 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship.
Shawn Farmer, 33, of Bellevue, Wash., and Christina Proteau, 32, of Canada
Farmer won the 2014 Washington State Golf Association Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship. Proteau, a prosecutor for the British Columbia Ministry of Justice, is a five-time Canadian Women’s Mid-Amateur champion and has won three British Columbia Women’s Amateurs and four British Columbia Women’s Mid-Amateurs. Proteau qualified for the 2011 U.S. Women’s Open at The Broadmoor. She reached the quarterfinals of the 2014 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship while six months pregnant, and all four of her matches went to 19 holes. She has since given birth to a son, Jameson.
Tara Fleming, 48, of Jersey City, N.J., and Alicia Kapheim, 53, of Pennington, N.J.
A reinstated amateur, Fleming competed on the LPGA Tour from 1990-96. Originally from Canada, she received the Mary Bea Porter Humanitarian Award in 1994 for performing CPR on a spectator who suffered a heart attack while she was playing in the LPGA Toledo Jamie Farr Classic. Kapheim is an award-winning architect, having earned five Illuminating Engineering Society Lumen Awards. She currently serves as the team captain for the Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association, the second-oldest golf association for women in the U.S.
Debbie Friede, 55, of Washougal, Wash., and Michelle Lint, 55, of Cardiff by the Sea, Calif.
Friede and Lint are both reinstated amateurs who played on the LPGA Tour. Friede is the marketing and membership director at Royal Oaks Country Club in Vancouver, Wash., while Lint works in sports marketing for TaylorMade-Adidas Golf.
Madison Gerstle, 28, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Martha Leach, 53, of Hebron, Ky.
Gerstle played her first 18 holes at age 25. Just three years later, she’s competing in her first USGA championship with her mom, Martha Leach, winner of the 2009 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur and younger sister
of six-time USGA champion Hollis Stacy. Leach introduced Stacy at her 2012 World Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony. This is Leach’s 55th USGA championship.
Margaret Gilley, 24, of Flossmoor, Ill., and Elizabeth Gilley Payne, 38, of Flossmoor, Ill.
The Gilleys are sisters who both played collegiate golf – Margaret at Southern Illinois University and Elizabeth at Northwestern University. Their other sister, Emily, also played at Northwestern, and their mom, Linda, was a high school golf coach and former president of the Women’s Western Golf Association in Illinois.
Morgan Goldstein, 13, of Las Vegas, Nev., and Veronica Joels, 15, of Las Vegas, Nev.
Goldstein captured the Girls 12-13 division in the 2015 Drive, Chip & Putt Championship at Augusta National, posting the first perfect score of 30 in the event’s history. Her 12-year-old brother, Aiden, competed in the 2014 Drive, Chip & Putt Championship. Joels is an avid equestrian, competing as a hunter jumper for six years and earning a grand champion title in the 2014 Hunter's Edge Harvest Invitational Hunter Jumper Show in Las Vegas.
Jenny Graeser, 33, of Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Katie Gustafson, 23, of Ames, Iowa
Graeser won the Iowa Women’s Amateur Championship in 2003 and 2009, and Iowa Girls Junior Championship in 1998 and 2000 under her maiden name of Heinz. In 2014, she was named Iowa Women’s Player of the Year. She has lost 130 pounds in the last three years. Gustafson, who is competing in her first USGA championship, will be getting married on June 13.
Mina Hardin, 54, of Fort Worth, Texas, and Caryn Wilson, 54, of Rancho Mirage, Calif.
Hardin is the first Mexican woman to compete on the LPGA Tour and first Mexican-born USGA champion. A reinstated amateur since 1991, she has twice won the Texas Women’s Amateur and was inducted into the Texas Golf Hall of Fame in 2012. Also a reinstated amateur, Wilson is just the second woman to compete in a U.S. Open championship in both golf and tennis, joining Althea Gibson. She was a three-time All-America selection in tennis at Stanford University, leading her team to a NCAA national title in 1982.
Ronda Henderson, 46, of Las Vegas, Nev., and Janet Weber, 60, of Las Vegas, Nev.
Working as a management analyst, Henderson was inside the Pentagon during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. She recalls seeing a huge hole in the building, the crashed plane, fire, smoke and debris everywhere. Weber is a former competitive figure skater who competed on the national level in the pairs discipline.
Mallory Hetzel, 28, of Waynesville, N.C., and Lea Venable, 41, of Simpsonville, S.C.
The head women’s golf coach at Western Carolina University, Hetzel won the 2014 Carolinas Women’s Match-Play Championship. Hetzel and Venable have both won multiple Carolinas Women’s Four-Ball titles, but never as a team.
Mary Jane Hiestand, 56, of Naples, Fla., and Tara Joy-Connelly, 42, of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Hiestand is the assistant men’s golf coach at Florida Gulf Coast University. The five-time Florida Women's Golf Association Senior Player of the Year and Michigan Golf Hall of Famer has competed in 34 USGA championships since 1995. She met her husband, Jeff, who doubles as her caddie, at a USGA qualifier in 1997. Joy-Connelly reached the semifinals of the 2014 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship. She lived for many years in Massachusetts and was named Player of the Decade for 2000-09 by the Women’s Golf Association of Massachusetts.
Lucy Li, 12, of Redwood City, Calif., and Kathleen Scavo, 17, of Benicia, Calif.
In 2014, Li became the youngest qualifier in U.S. Women’s Open history at 11 years, 8 months and 19 days old. In 2013, she became the youngest competitor in U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship history, competing at 10 years, 10 months and 4 days of age. That same year, she became the second-youngest player in U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links history at 10 years, 8 months and 16 days of age and the youngest to reach match play. Scavo also qualified for the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open, finishing second to Li in the Half Moon Bay (Calif.) Golf Links sectional qualifier, and won the 2012 and 2013 California Junior Girls’ State Championships.
Mika Liu, 16, of Bradenton, Fla., and Rinko Mitsunaga, 18, of Roswell, Ga.
Liu won the 2014 Women’s Western Amateur and Southern Amateur championships. She received an amateur exemption into the LPGA Tour’s 2015 ANA Inspiration, and represented the USA in the 2014 World Junior Girls Championship. In March, Mitsunaga won the Kathy Whitworth Invitational, conducted by the American Junior Golf Association. Mitsunaga will enroll at the University of Georgia in the fall, while Liu recently made a verbal commitment to Stanford University.
Marissa Mar, 23, of El Macero, Calif., and Lila Barton, 25, of Dallas, Texas
Barton and Mar were teammates at Stanford University during the 2010-11 year, and Mar captained the women’s golf team to a Pac-12 team title in 2014. She’s now a business development analyst at Yahoo, while Barton works as a marketing director for Chegg, an online education service focused on high school and college students.
Sue Billek Nyhus, 52, of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Annette Gaiotti, 62, of Salt Lake City, Utah
Nyhus is in her fifth season as the head women’s golf coach at Utah Valley University, where she coaches her daughter, Kimberly. Prior to coaching at UVU, the two-time winner of the Utah State Women’s Amateur (1985, 1999) coached at Brigham Young University for 11 years. Nyhus, a reinstated amateur, was named Utah Women's Golf Association Golfer of the Year in 1996 and 1998, and became the first woman to be named Utah Golf Association Player of the Year in 1999. She was also named Female Golfer of the Decade by the UGA. Nyhus has competed in every USGA women’s championship (Women’s Open, Women’s Amateur, Girls’ Junior, Senior Women’s Amateur, Women’s Amateur Four-Ball, Women’s State Team, Women’s Amateur Public Links). Gaiotti is a two-time Utah Senior Women’s Player of the Year.
Hannah O’Sullivan, 16, of Chandler, Ariz., and Robynn Ree, 17, of Redondo Beach, Calif.
O’Sullivan won the 2015 Gateway Classic, the opening event on the Symetra Tour, becoming the youngest winner in Tour history and the first amateur winner since 1999. She qualified for the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open at age 14 and was a semifinalist in the 2014 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship. O’Sullivan represented the USA in the 2014 Junior Ryder Cup. Ree and O’Sullivan will eventually be teammates at the University of Southern California. Ree will enroll in the fall of 2015, while O’Sullivan has verbally committed to the school for the fall of 2016.
Carol Robertson, 31, of Blacksburg, Va., and Corrie Myers, 35, of Palm Coast, Fla.
Robertson and Myers were teammates at James Madison University. Robertson became the first head women’s golf coach at Virginia Tech in 2013. Prior to that, she served as head coach at Old Dominion University for two seasons. The 2006 Virginia State Amateur champion, Robertson reached the finals of the 2010 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship, where she lost to Meghan Stasi. Robertson recently gained national attention for making two holes-in-one in a three-hole stretch of one round at Celebration Golf Club in Orlando, Fla. Myers has only recently returned to competitive golf following the birth of her daughter, Harper, in April 2014. She met her husband, Brad, when he was the head golf professional at three-time U.S. Open host site Congressional Country Club and she took golf lessons from him.
Alyssa Roland, 26, of New York, N.Y., and Callie Kemmer, 24, of Washington, D.C.
Roland and Kemmer were teammates at Yale University, with Roland winning the 2010 Ivy League Championship. Roland is a leveraged finance capital markets associate for Credit Suisse, while Kemmer works as a consultant for Deloitte. Kemmer’s brother, Dodge, is a professional golfer who competes on the European Challenge Tour.
Shelley Sanders, 45, of Fairfax, Va., and Connie Isler, 31, of Arlington, Va.
A lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, Sanders has served for more than 21 years with assignments worldwide, including the 82nd Airborne Division. A paratrooper, Sanders has completed the requisite number of jumps as a master parachutist and qualified as a jumpmaster. She also played on the women’s basketball team at the University of Southern Mississippi. Isler graduated from Georgetown University in 2005 at age 21 and two months later was named the school’s women’s golf coach. She has since left the coaching profession and works for IBM as a software client leader for NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Meghan Stasi, 36, of Oakland Park, Fla., and Dawn Woodard, 40, of Greer, S.C.
Stasi won the 2012 Ione D. Jones/Doherty Championship. Earlier this year, the four-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion represented the USA in the South American Amateur Championship, where she finished eighth. Stasi and her husband, Danny, own Shuck N’ Dive, a seafood restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The 2012 Carolinas Women’s Player of the Year, Woodard won the 2011 and 2012 Carolinas Women’s Match Play Championships, 2010-12 Women’s South Carolina Golf Association Match Play Championships and the 2012 WSCGA Stroke Play Championship.
Thuhashini Selvaratnam, 38, of Cave Creek, Ariz., and Mari Miezwa, 35, of Chandler, Ariz.
Selvaratnam is the varsity girls’ golf coach at Xavier College Preparatory, a Catholic, all-female private high school in Phoenix. Born and raised in Sri Lanka, “Tui” won the Sri Lanka Amateur Championship at age 12, earning a Guinness World Record as the youngest player to win a national championship. She was also named Arizona Women’s Golf Association Player of the Year from 2001-2010 and the Sri Lanka Sports Woman of the Year in 1997. Selvaratnam and Miezwa teamed to win the 2015 Arizona Women’s Golf Association’s Four-Ball Championship in April.
Gigi Stoll, 18, of Portland, Ore., and Danielle Lee, 18, of La Mirada, Calif.
Stoll won the 2014 Oregon Women’s Amateur Championship as well as the 2013 Oregon Junior Stroke Play and Junior Amateur Championships. At age 11, Stoll advanced to the national finals of the Elks Free Throw Shooting Championship at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., where she finished sixth. Stoll and Lee will both be freshmen at the University of Arizona in the fall.
Courtney Tincher, 28, of New York, N.Y., and Marie Bos, 29, of New York, N.Y.
Tincher is a sports consultant for Wasserman Media Group, while Bos works as a senior market research manager for Golf Digest. Tincher will celebrate her 29th birthday on May 9, the first day of stroke play.
Camilla Vik, 20, of Greenwich, Conn., and Susana Vik, 16, of Greenwich, Conn.
The Vik sisters have dual USA-Norway citizenship and have played extensively in Europe. Susana has played for the Norwegian junior national golf team, and also plays varsity ice hockey and soccer at Greenwich Academy. Camilla is a sophomore at Columbia University.
Angel Yin, 16, of Arcadia, Calif., and Muni He, 15, of the People’s Republic of China
Yin carded a 13-under 131 in stroke-play qualifying for the 2014 U.S. Girls’ Junior, which is the second-lowest 36-hole score in both U.S. Girls’ Junior and USGA amateur championship history. He was born in China, and currently lives in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., after living in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has verbally committed to attend the University of Southern California in the fall of 2017.
Compiled by Christina Lance, manager of championship communications for the USGA, and Vanessa Zink, assistant manager of championship communications. Email them at clance@usga.org and vzink@usga.org.