34th U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur Home

What Happened

It will be Greenlief’s second match against a USGA champion. On Tuesday morning, Greenlief defeated seven-time USGA champion Ellen Port, 2 and 1, before taking out Jacqueline Bendrick, 2 up, to earn her third consecutive trip to the quarterfinals.

Johnson route to the quarters included a 3-and-2 win in the Round of 32 over Lila Thomas, 3 and 2, and a tough 1-up victory over Tara Joy-Connelly, 1 up.

Aliea Clark, 25, of New York, N.Y., continued her Cinderella run, winning both of her matches convincingly to become the first 64 seed in championship history to reach the quarterfinals. Clark, making her championship debut, defeated Ashley Freeman, 3 and 2, and Kaylin Crownover, 4 and 2, in her two matches on Tuesday. This came after she eliminated record-setting stroke-play medalist Jennifer Peng on Monday in the Round of 64.

“I'm just super happy. I love match play because each day is a blank slate, each round is a blank slate, so I keep reminding myself, those first two days, like life, it's a fresh start every round,” said Clark, a former UCLA golfer who survived a 5-for-1 playoff on Sunday to grab the last match-play spot.

Clark, a graduate student at NYU, will take on No. 40 seed Dawn Woodard, of Greenville, S.C., on Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. Woodard, who is competing in her 19th U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur, defeated Andrea Kosa, of Canada, in the Round of 32 before eliminating No. 9 seed Kimberly Dinh, of Midland, Mich., 2 and 1, in the Round of 16.

Blakesly Brock, of Chattanooga, Tenn., defeated 2019 runner-up Talia Campbell in 19 holes in the only extra-hole match of the Round of 16. Brock will face Clare Connolly, of Chevy Chase, Md., who defeated No. 3 seed Jamie Freedman, 4 and 3, in the Round of 16 after eliminating Melissa Loh, 3 and 2, earlier in the day.

Amanda Jacobs, of Portland, Ore., won both of her matches on the 18th hole on Tuesday and faces Kim-Schaad at 8:10 a.m. on Wednesday. Jacobs defeated No. 5 seed Lana Weant in the Round of 16, 2 up.

What’s Next

The quarterfinal matches will begin at 8 a.m. EDT on Wednesday with the first of two semifinal matches set to start at 1 p.m. The 18-hole championship match on Thursday is scheduled for 9 a.m. Spectators are encouraged to attend, and admission is free.

Notable

• All eight quarterfinalists are exempt into next year’s championship. The 2022 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur will be conducted at Fiddlesticks Country Club, in Fort Myers, Fla., from Sept. 17-22.
  
  
• Ina Kim-Schaad is the only quarterfinalist who has not trailed during match play.
  
  
• Dawn Woodard has reached match play in all 19 of her championship appearances. This will be her first quarterfinals appearance since 2009.
  
  
• Two of the quarterfinalists reside in New York City (Aliea Clark and Ina Kim-Schaad), while Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia are home to one each. Clark and Kim-Schaad, however, are both native Southern Californians; the former from San Diego and the latter from Greater Los Angeles.
  
  
• Prior to their Round-of-16 meeting, Lara Tennant had played 40 holes during her two matches, the most of any competitor to reach that stage, while Kim-Schaad had played the fewest holes (27).
  
  
• Lauren Greenlief has made the quarterfinals in four of the last five U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateurs. She is the only mid-amateur to reach the quarterfinals of the U.S. Women’s Amateur in the last 15 years, doing so in 2018 at The Golf Club of Tennessee in Kinston Springs, Tenn.
  
  
• Seven competitors who advanced to the Round of 16 were making their first U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur appearance.

Quotable

“If you can hit a fairway out here and a green out here and avoid the bunkers, two-putt par, if you get a birdie, it's a bonus. That's kind of the way to play it, especially out here, and keeping the ball below the hole is definitely key.” – Clare Connolly, a sales representative for Maui Jim Sunglasses, competing in her third U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur

“The match with Ellen was a blast. Ellen is a close friend, and I admire everything she's done in golf, and you can definitely tell why she's won so many championships when you play against her. She played tough the entire time. She hit a ton of wedges in there to just like pick-up range for birdies, so she hung in there. I was able to make a couple good saves at the end to get it done, but I thought that was a match in the morning to kind of get my head in the game for the rest of the way.” – Lauren Greenlief on her 2-and-1 victory over Port in the Round of 32

“I haven’t played very well in the last six years. It feels good, it’s great to be playing good golf this year. I’ve just proven to myself that I can still compete out here.” – Ellen Port, 60, who won her 61st career U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur match on Monday during the Round of 64, the most championship victories of all-time.

“I think for not swinging it well and only being 1 down, I was pretty happy with that going into the turn, which was good. So I knew if I could swing just one, that's a big momentum turner, and then if I can get another one and get up on her, then that's really good.” – Shannon Johnson, who trailed at the turn in her Round-of-16 comeback victory over Tara Joy-Connelly

“I think my expectations were to play much better in stroke play than I did, so then coming to match play I truly had not; I was playing Jen. She shot 8 under and broke a [36-hole] record. How can I have any expectations? Expectations clearly worked out poorly, so now we just like have none, and I truly just can't even tell you what hole I did what on. I'm just trying to hit good shots.” – Aliea Clark on her expectations heading into the championship

Joey Geske is a coordinator of championship communications for the USGA. Email him at jgeske@usga.org.

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