Sarah Gallagher defeats Brenda Kuehn to win 2023 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — After 36 holes of stroke play over two days followed by six rounds of match play spread out over four days, Sarah Gallagher came out on top at Troon Country Club to win the 61st U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship.

Gallagher, 50, faced off against Brenda Corrie Kuehn, mother of college all-star Rachel Kuehn, in the final. Kuehn, 58, has competed in more than 45 USGA championships, including nine U.S. Women’s Opens. Gallagher is a former sixth-grade social studies teacher who now does financial planning. This was her first Senior Am.

They tied the first hole but then Gallagher birdied the next four holes to take a 4-up lead. A crowd of about 70 people was following the duo when Kuehn birdied the ninth to cut it to 3 up but the lead went right back to 4 up for Gallagher after she birdied the 12th.

That’s when things got interesting:

• Kuehn birdied the par-3 13th to make it a 3-up lead

• Kuehn then won the 14th hole with a par to make it 2 up

• Gallagher birdied the 113-yard par-3 15th to 3 up with three to go

• Kuehn fought back to win the 16th with a par

• Kuehn then won the par-5 17th with a birdie

Gallagher’s lead was now 1 up with one to go. Game on.

On the 18th hole, Gallagher hit an 8-iron for her second shot to the elevated back pin over the green then stubbed her chip. Kuehn landed her second shot in the front of the green and had to putt all the way across the green. She ended up three-putting for a bogey. Gallagher, a former Florida Gator living in Georgia, then calmly poured in her bogey putt to seal the win.

She immediately embraced her good friend and caddie Erin Packer and the two soaked in the win.

“I’m probably going to hold it in my lap on the airplane,” she said of the trophy which doesn’t have an official name but was nicknamed Big Bertha. “I’m going to put it on the kitchen table. No, I’m going to put it on the island in the kitchen. Actually, no, I can’t do that.

“My kids will put stuff in it.”

Holding a shrinking lead ratcheted up the tension but Gallagher said she knew it wouldn’t ever be easy.

“Brenda is, she’s such an incredible competitor,” she said about her 4-up lead dwindling to 1 up. “I knew she was going to start making putts. She’s so good. I knew I had to stay patient.”

After 103 holes of match play, Gallagher was only down on three holes.

“I like if I just kept hitting it in play, I had to force her to keep playing the way she did the first 14 holes,” said Kuehn, who admitted she didn’t carry much confidence into the event and had a flight home scheduled for Tuesday, then re-booked it for Wednesday before changing it yet again.

By reaching the 2023 final, both Kuehn and Gallagher earn a U.S. Women’s Am spot as well as entry into the 2024 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Brae Burn Country Club in West Newton, Massachusetts, and the 2024 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur at Broadmoor Golf Club in Seattle, Washington.

Fun facts from the week at Troon CC

• Sarah LeBrun Ingram, the 1993 U.S. Women’s Amateur runner-up and a three-time U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion, set a tournament record Tuesday by needing just 24 holes to win consecutive matches. First, dispatched Tara Joy-Connelly, 8 and 6 in the morning. In the afternoon, she knocked out England’s Jackie Foster, 7 and 6. The previous mark was 26 holes.

• Linda Jeffery had a hole-in-one Wednesday. But it didn’t count as an ace. Troon Country Club’s second hole shares a large green with the seventh. Jeffery was playing the par-3 seventh but the ball rolled to the far side of the green and went into the cup on the second. As noted by the USGA, the rule in effect gave her relief and a free drop off the putting surface. She ended up making bogey.

• In the Round of 64, Kathy Hartwiger of Pinehurst, North Carolina, drained a 39-foot putt to cap off an 8-and-7 win over Wendy Ohlmeyer of Ladera Ranch, California, tying the largest margin of victory in Senior Women’s Amateur championship history.

• Defending champion Shelly Stouffer of Canada was eliminated in the Round of 32. Only nine times has a golfer defended her title in the 61 years of this event.

• Lara Tennant, a three-time winner of the U.S Senior Women’s Am, took home solo medalist honors after 36 holes of stroke play. She finished 2-over 146 to win by three strokes.

• Nicki Stricker was one of the pre-tournament headliners. The wife of Steve Stricker, Nicki made the field but did not advance out of the 36-hole stroke-play portion of the event.

Story originally appeared on GolfWeek