Kathleen Scavo Earns Spot in LPGA’s Cambia Portland Classic
University of Oregon junior Kathleen Scavo won the Portland Classic Amateur Open, earning the opportunity to compete against LPGA professionals with a spot in the Cambia Portland Classic.
A junior on the Ducks’ women’s golf team, Scavo turned in a 4-under par round of 68 at Langdon Farms Golf Club in Aurora, Ore. on August 9 to earn the spot.
Scavo finished four strokes ahead of Kristin Elich of Camas, Wash. and Ellie Slama of Salem, Ore., who themselves earned an opportunity to play in the Portland Classic’s Monday qualifying round, after surviving a three-way playoff that went five holes before it was settled.
Portland State University senior Hannah Swanson of Forest Grove, Ore. also finished even-par and was part of the playoff.
Elich is a senior on the George Fox University’s women’s golf team that finished second in the nation in this past season’s NCAA Division III championship, and Slama is the reigning OSAA Class 6A high school women’s state champion and bound for Oregon State University in the fall. Slama was named the PNGA Junior Girls’ Player of the Year in 2015 and 2016.
Elich and Slama made long birdie putts on the fifth playoff hole to capture the two runner-up spots.
As a high school junior, Scavo played in the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open at Pinehurst. She is a two-time WGCA All-American Scholar and this past season, as a sophomore at Oregon, she earned second team Pac-12 all-academic honors. Earlier this summer, she was co-medalist in the California Women’s Amateur.
The Cambia Portland Classic will be held from August 31 through September 3 at Portland’s Columbia Edgewater Country Club. The tournament’s professional qualifying round will be held on Monday, August 28. The 72-hole event features the top women professional golfers from around the world, competing for a purse of $1.3 million. All four rounds of the Portland Classic will be broadcast to over 170 countries on the Golf Channel.
Tournament Golf Foundation (TGF) is a local Portland area non-profit group of more than 50 volunteers who contribute their time and provide the primary operations for the annual event. Now in its 46th year, the Portland Classic is the longest-running non-major event on the LPGA tour.
For more information, contact the Tournament Golf Foundation/Cambia Portland Classic office at (503) 626-2711 or visit www.portlandclassic.com.