Aug. 6, 2013
CHARLESTON, S.C. – University of Notre Dame women’s golfer Talia Campbell was one of 156 players in the field this week at the 113th United States Women’s Amateur Championship at the Country Club of Charleston. Campbell carded a second round even-par 71 (80-71-151) Tuesday to narrowly miss the stroke play cut by only one shot on the challenging par-71, 6,488-yard layout that yielded only six rounds at par or better during Monday’s first round.
The top 64 players in the field after the first two rounds qualified for the match play stage of the championship, where players are seeded based on scores from the stroke play portion of the tournament. The tournament champion will have to win six consecutive heads-up matches, including a 36-hole finale Aug. 11, to claim the U.S. Women’s Amateur title.
Campbell enjoyed a stretch of three birdies in five holes during her opening nine on day two, gaining strokes at the 402-yard fourth, the par-5, 501-yard fifth and the 401-yard eighth holes to make the turn at even-par (36) for her round. Nine straight pars on the back nine gave the Irish sophomore an inward score of 35 (36-35-71), tying for 66th place overall at nine-over par.
Yumi Matsubara turned in the round of the tournament on Tuesday, draining seven birdies to post a bogey-free round of 64 (71-64-135) and set the championship’s 18-hole scoring record. Day one leader Allisen Corpuz (69-71-140, -2) and Yueer Cindy Feng (72-68-140, -2) shared runner-up honors after the first two days of play, five strokes off Matsubara’s pace.
Campbell, the 21st Irish women’s golfer to appear at the U.S. Women’s Amateur, was one of a record 1,170 entries into this year’s tournament, which featured 31 exempt golfers and qualifiers from 18 sectional sites across the country. She was making her second career U.S. Women’s Amateur start after finishing 36th in the stroke play portion of the 2011 championship at the Rhode Island Country Club in Barrington, R.I. (74-71-145).
The Dallas native enjoyed a standout freshman year at Notre Dame in 2012-13, as she posted the fourth-best single season stroke average (74.70) in the program’s history, was a unanimous all-BIG EAST selection, and shared co-medalist honors at the BIG EAST Championship after firing a 54-hole total of six-under par 210 (72-69-69) to lead the Irish to their fifth and final BIG EAST title. Campbell added five top-10 overall finishes in the 11 tournaments she played.
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