NEWTON, Massachusetts – On Tuesday morning, with two golden tickets to the 2024 U.S. Women’s Amateur at historic Southern Hills Country Club up for grabs, players from all over North America inched their way along in rush hour Metro-Boston traffic, weaved through the leafy roads of Newton, eased through the elegant stone entrance, and queued up on the range at Charles River Country Club.
It was another in a seemingly endless string of oppressively hot days in the area. The “Heat Advisory” isn’t stuck to your home screen, though it’s probably starting to look as familiar as the clock icon. But these mid-90°s days are the best case scenario for Tulsa, Oklahoma, in August, so any would-be qualifiers had better start getting used to it.
Those qualifiers are medalist Sophie Thai (Los Altos, CA), who will be making her debut in the championship after recording a 69 on the par-73 Donald Ross design, and reigning Massachusetts Women’s Amateur champion Rebecca Skoler (Needham, MA), who will also make her first appearance at the championship after a six birdie day at Charles River.
Sophie Thai hit the shot of the day on the 148-yard par-3 4th hole, when she jarred it for an ace. Thai then validated it with a sizzling round of 4-under, with five birdies to compliment her hole-in-one, garnering her medalist honors.
“I really wasn’t trying to think much about my hole-in-one, because it’s the first one I’ve ever had,” said Thai. “I guess it was a pretty big moment, but I didn’t want to put any additional pressure because it is a qualifier, so I was really just trying to stay in the moment and focus on the next shots ahead.”
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Though she hails from the Bay Area, Sophie Thai is quite familiar with New England golf. Thai is a rising junior at Darmouth College and is coming off a breakout season for the Big Green. She tied for second in the individual category at this April’s Ivy League Championship at The Stanwich Club in Greenwich, CT, leading the team to their first-ever Ivy League Championship crown. Thai then recorded the team’s best finish at the NCAA Las Vegas Regional, with a T-32. She was named First Team All-Ivy and to the WGCA All-American Scholars.
Thai approached today’s qualifying with an admirable dose of perspective, and from the sound of it, a spot in August’s championship is just an added bonus after walking 18 holes with her father on the bag: “It honestly feels amazing. I came into this event just as a bonding experience with my dad. So it’s great to make more memories and have more opportunities to travel.”
As for championship prep, Thai is taking a full slate of summer classes at Dartmouth, but she’ll sneak in some range sessions in between.
University of Virginia’s Rebecca Skoler, is a familiar face around the Massachusetts amateur golf scene. In 2023, won the Massachusetts Women’s Amateur Championship, one year after finishing runner-up to Morgan Smith. In the spring, she finished 132nd at the NCAA Championship and 29th at the ACC Championship.
Skoler endured a rocky start, when she made three bogeys and two birdies over the first seven holes. “I think early on I was a little bit shaky. I made a bogey on the first hole, but I was able to make a birdie on the second, and I kind of kept doing that,” said Skoler. “I was going bogey-birdie, so that was definitely keeping me in it, mentally, just not getting too down on myself or making some bogeys that I probably shouldn’t have, you know, missing short putts. But, I think when you know that there are birdies out there, that also helps you to stay steady.”
But from there, she played her final eleven holes in not just steady, but immaculate fashion, carding four birdies (running her total to six on the day) to zero bogeys. Perhaps knowing that she would need a par on the difficult 408 yard closing par-4, Skoler hit an excellent second shot from the left rough, skirting around a tree and running up the fringe, about a foot shy of the green. Faced with about 25 feet up the hill, she hit a perfectly weighted lag putt to a foot, effectively punching her ticket with a stress-free tap-in.
Skoler is looking forward to her first appearance on a national, USGA stage, “Given that it is my first and I’m heading into my last year of college golf, I think I’m just going to try to enjoy the experience, hopefully see a couple of my teammates there and a couple of friends. So I’m just really excited to play on such a big stage and enjoy that experience, for sure.”
Skoler’s strong finish afforded her a one shot margin over ACC rival Phoebe Brinker (Wilmington, DE), an All-American from Duke University, who’s 2-under 71 left her in first alternate position. Shannon Johnson (North Easton, MA) is the second alternate after an even par round of 73.
The U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship will take place at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from August 5-11, 2024. Skoler and Thai will be joined in the Sooner state by at least two Mass Golfers. Morgan Smith qualified in Bethesda, Maryland, and her sister Molly Smith qualified in Boonton, New Jersey. A third Smith, Madison, is currently an alternate through the Bethesda qualifying event.
QUALIFIERS (Names; Cities)
Sophie Thai (Los Altos, CA); (-4) 69
Rebecca Skoler (Needham, MA); (-3) 70
ALTERNATES (In Order)
Phoebe Brinker (Wilmington, DE); (-2) 71
Shannon Johnson (North Easton, MA) (E) 73
Charles River CC sprawls across rolling terrain in bustling Newton, sewn in by dense neighborhood to the north and east, and it’s namesake, the Charles River, to the west. The Donald Ross designed course was opened for play in 1921. In an area brimming with great golf courses–The Country Club, George Wright, Woodland GC and Brae Burn are all within a 6 mile radius–Charles River holds its own. Francis Ouimet was a bond-holding member from 1922-1927, and became the club’s first honorary member after that. Additionally, Eddie Lowery, who famously caddied for Ouimet as a ten year old during the historic 1913 U.S. Open at Brookline, was a member, and club champion twice over at Charles River (1933,1936). He also won the Mass Amateur held at Charles River in 1927. The club has hosted the stroke play portion of the U.S. Amateur (2013), as well as multiple Mass Golf championships: Open (1925, 1952, 1975, 1983, 2006), Amateur (1927, 1936, 1946, 1966, 1994, 2017), Women’s Am (1929, 1933, 1946, 1951, 1961, 1971, 1981, 2010).
The U.S. Women’s Amateur was first contested in 1895, and was long considered the biggest women’s event in the country (the U.S. Women’s Open was first held in1946). Female amateur golfers of any age with a handicap of 2.4 or lower are eligible to compete. This year, the USGA accepted 1,588 entries for 156 slots in the final field. The championship begins with two days of stroke play on August 5th and 6th, which determines the seedings for a 64 player match play bracket, culminating in a 36-hole final match on Sunday, August 11th.
The 2024 Championship will be held at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The course was designed by Perry Maxwell in 1936 and recently received a sought after Gil Hanse restoration. The course has hosted an impressive array of major championships, including the 1946 U.S. Women’s Amateur won by Babe Zaharias, 3 U.S. Opens (’58 Tommy Bolt, ’77 Hubert Green, ’01 Retief Goosen), and 5 PGA Championships (’70 Dave Stockton, ’82 Raymond Floyd, ’94 Nick Price, ’07 Tiger Woods, ’22 Justin Thomas).
The U.S. Women’s Amateur will return to the Bay State in 2028, when Brae Burn Country Club, just 4 miles up the road, hosts. There have been 11 prior U.S. Women’s Ams contested at 6 different Massachusetts courses: Essex County Club (1897, 1912), The Country Club (1902, 1941, 1995), Brae Burn (1906, 1975, 1997), Belmont Country Club (1916), and Salem Country Club (1932), Taconic Golf Club (1963).
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