Northwest players shine at U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur 

The Pacific Northwest is, once again, well represented at the national golf championship level, as a marquee event enters its final phases. 

Shelly Stouffer (Nanoose Bay, B.C.), Lara Tennant (Portland, Ore.), and Kim Shek (Bellevue, Wash.) all impressed at the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship this week, with Stouffer advancing to the semifinals, and each player making the round of 16. 

The championship is being held at The Omni Homestead Resort (Cascades Course) in Hot Springs, Va.  

Stouffer, who won this national championship in 2022, entered the match play bracket as the No. 5 seed. Match by match, she defeated Tracy Welch, Karin Luxon and Marie Arnoux in that order to continue her quest for another title. 

Stouffer’s quarterfinal berth comes roughly two weeks after she won the 2025 PNGA Senior Women’s Amateur, her third such triumph in that championship (2022, 2023). She is a 2024 Inductee to the PNGA Hall of Fame and has won the previous six B.C. Women’s Senior Women’s Amateur titles, been a member of seven Lamey Cup teams, and has twice been named PNGA Senior Women’s Player of the Year. She has advanced to the match play portion in all three of her previous starts in the U.S. Senior Women’s Am, and last year made it to the final match before finishing runner-up.  

Tennant has won the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Champion three times, most recently in 2021. Decorated in Oregon Golf Association competition, Tennant has won each of the previous nine Oregon Senior Women’s Amateurs. She was also the low amateur at the 2025 U.S. Senior Women’s Open. Tennant was inducted into the PNGA Hall of Fame in 2022. 

Entering the match play bracket as the No. 3 seed, Tennant defeated Lori Schlicher and Gigi Higgins to keep her chances at a fourth title alive, before falling to Sarah Gallagher in the round of 16. 

As for Shek, she is an established player in her home state of Washington, having won the Washington Senior Women’s Amateur in 2023 and 2024. Narrowly making match play as the No. 59 seed this week, Shek advanced past Judy Penman and Lea Venable before Suzy Spotleson defeated her in the round of 16. 

Despite the loss, Shek’s week marks a continuation of fine performances of late. She advanced to the quarterfinals in last year’s U.S. Senior Women’s Am and qualified for the 2025 U.S. Senior Women’s Open. 

UPDATE: Stouffer, the lone Northwesterner remaining in the championship, successfully defeated Nadene Gole in her quarterfinal match, which was a rematch of their championship match last year, in which Gole won the match 3 and 2, with the championship being held at Seattle’s Broadmoor Golf Club. She then lost to Dawn Woodward in her semifinal match.

Also making it to match play was Sheryl Scott of Boise, Idaho, who lost in the round of 64.