Women's Amateur golf
South Korea wins its fifth Women's Amateur Team title; U.S. ties for 6th
South Korea's players celebrate.
Steven Gibbons
South Korea is once again on top of the world in women’s team golf. World No. 4 Minsol Kim shot four-under-par 68 and Kyroim Seo added a 71 in the fourth round at Abu Dhabi Golf Club as the Koreans came back to win the 30th Women's World Amateur Team Championship on Saturday. It is the fourth time in the last seven editions of the event that South Korea has won, while being the country's fifth title overall.
With two scores counting among three players in each round, Korea had a 72-hole total of 22 under, and that was four strokes better than Chinese Taipei, which shot 140 in the final round. Spain, the 54-hole leader, shot even par on Saturday and was five strokes back.
The United States tied for sixth with Australia with a 15-under total. Anna Davis, the 2022 Augusta National Women’s Amateur champion and an Auburn commit, led the Americans with a four-day total of six-under 282. Wake Forest fifth-year player Rachel Kuehn and reigning U.S. Women’s Amateur champ Megan Schofill, of Auburn, each finished at 284. The U.S. last won the team title in 2018.
Although there is no official recognition, Chinese Taipei’s Huai-Chien Hsu was the low individual scorer at 13-under 275.
South Korea’s Kim, the World Amateur No. 4 and runner-up in the 2023 Women’s Amateur Asia Pacific, made back-to-back birdies on the par-5 second and par-4 third holes, and again on the eighth and ninth as South Korea moved to the top of the leaderboard and stayed there.
“I was focused on my play,” said Kim. “I didn’t putt as aggressively as the first three rounds. I was more relaxed and just tried to make par and some became birdies.”
Spain managed to get within two shots of South Korea with two holes to play, but all three players bogeyed the par-5 18th hole to drop the team from silver position to bronze.
“It’s really disappointing,” said Spain Captain Mar Ruiz de la Torre. “Last year we were in the same situation, and this year again. It’s really a pity because they played well. We just didn’t have too much luck with the putts.”
Korea will hold the Espirito Santo Trophy until the 2025 World Amateur Team Championship in Singapore.