Ko and Superal to Meet in Final Match at 115th PNGA Women’s Amateur; Farmer and Jacobs Square Off in Final Match at 15th Women’s Mid-Amateur

Naomi Ko of Victoria, B.C. and Princess Superal of Sun City, Fla. will meet in the 36-hole final match of the 115th Pacific Northwest Women’s Amateur; while Shawn Farmer of Renton, Wash. will square up against Amanda Jacobs of Portland, Ore. in the 18-hole final match of the 15th Pacific Northwest Women’s Mid-Amateur.

Both matches will be held tomorrow, July 23, on the Prospector Course at Suncadia in Cle Elum, Wash. The Women’s Amateur final will tee off at 7:30 a.m., and the Women’s Mid-Amateur final will tee off at 7:40 a.m.

The championships are being conducted by the Pacific Northwest Golf Association (PNGA).

Click here to follow along with live hole-by-hole scoring for both matches.

Ko and Superal were tied (along with Jisoo Keel) after the Women’s Amateur’s two rounds of stroke-play qualifying, and Ko won the No. 1 seed going into the match-play bracket by winning the playoff.

Both players had a relatively easy time in winning this afternoon’s semifinal matches. Ko dispatched Michelle Kim, 6 and 5; and Superal defeated Samantha Martirez of the Philippines, 7 and 5. Kim and Martirez are both quality players, with Kim being a member of the Canadian National Team, and Martirez having won the international RSGC AmBank Junior Amateur.

Ko, of Victoria, B.C., was named the 2014 PNGA Junior Girls’ Player of the Year, and qualified for this year’s U.S. Women’s Open. A member of the Canadian National Team, Ko will be a freshman at North Carolina State in the fall.

“I feel pretty good,” said Ko, after her semifinal win. “A little tired, trying to fight against the wind. My game feels like it’s ready, so I’m excited about tomorrow.”

Superal, of Sun City, Calif., won the 2014 U.S. Girls’ Junior, the 2016 Hong Kong Ladies Amateur, and was medalist at the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball (with partner Pauline del Rosario) where she made it to the semifinals.

A native of the Philippines, Superal said she’s looking forward to the final match. “I’ll just enjoy the day,” she said. “All week I’ve just been telling myself to put the drive in the fairway, and put the next shot on the green, and then make a putt.”

Farmer earned her way into tomorrow’s final match of the Women’s Mid-Amateur by knocking off No. 1 seed Christina Proteau in this afternoon’s semifinal. Farmer never trailed in the match, and closed it out with a par on the 17th hole to win, 2 and 1. Farmer won the 2014 Washington State Women’s Mid-Amateur, was named to the 2015 USGA Washington Women’s State Team, and qualified for the 2015 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball.

Farmer and Proteau are good friends, and are partners in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball. “It was a tough match,” Farmer said. “We went back and forth, especially on the back nine. Any chance I have to play Christina is a great opportunity because she’s such a good player.”

In this afternoon’s other semifinal match, Jacobs defeated Alison Murdoch of Victoria, B.C., 5 and 3. Jacobs was named the 2015 PNGA Women’s Mid-Amateur Player of the Year. “To play against Alison, she’s such a great golfer, I wish I had about half of her short game,” Jacobs said. This is the fourth year in a row that Jacobs has made it to the final match, winning the title in 2014.

Murdoch is a 2013 inductee into the Pacific Northwest Golf Hall of Fame.

First held in 1899, the Pacific Northwest Women’s Amateur Championship is one of the oldest amateur golf championships in the world. Past champions include Pacific Northwest Golf Hall of Famers who made up the Golden Age of female golfers in the Northwest such as JoAnne Gunderson Carner, Jo Ann Washam, Pat Lesser Harbottle, Edean Ihlanfeldt, Violet Pooly Sweeney, Marcia Fisher, and Betty Jean Hulteng, among others. Past champions also include many others who would later go on to the LPGA Tour, such as Jimin Kang, Peggy Conley, Ruth Jessen and Shirley Englehorn.

The Pacific Northwest Women’s Amateur and Mid-Amateur are two of 15 major, regional, amateur championships for men, women, juniors, and seniors conducted annually by the PNGA throughout the Northwest.