PNGA Hall of Famer Lara Tennant claims another R&A Senior Women’s Amateur title

Lara Tennant of Portland, Ore. has won The R&A Women’s Senior Amateur Championship, held this week at Frilford Heath Golf Club in Oxfordshire, just west of London.

Tennant is a 5-time PNGA Senior Women’s Player of the Year, and in 2022 was inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Hall of Fame. This week, she won her second R&A Women’s Senior Amateur title when she outlasted England’s Emma Brown in a thrilling encounter.

Currently ranked 357th on the World Amateur Golf Ranking, Tennant returned a closing 2-under-par 72 over Frilford’s Red Course for a two-over-par 296 total to defeat Brown by five shots. Brown’s fellow 2002 Curtis Cup team-mate Kerry Smith placed third, six shots adrift of Tennant.

“It feels great,” Tennant said. “This is my fourth time playing in this event and I’ve won twice and finished second so I’m more than happy.”

Tennant, who won the 2019 Women’s Senior Amateur at Royal St David’s, was three shots adrift of Brown after nine holes of the final round. However, the three-time U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur champion played the inward nine in one-under-par 36 to Brown’s 44 to get her hands on the trophy again.

“I wanted to shoot 2-under today and I did that,” added Tennant, who won three straight U.S. Women’s Senior Amateur Championships between 2018 and 2021. “I did a good job of just focusing on my own game. I knew I was behind Emma but not by how much. I just stuck to my game plan and tried to do my best on each shot.”

The 59-year-old won thanks to the way she played the 15th and 16th holes compared to Brown. Tennant found a fairway bunker off the tee on the 15th and couldn’t advance the ball to the green. However, she got up and down from 100 yards to save par. Then her approach shot to the 16th hit the flag and ended up two-and-a-half feet away.

“After I hit it in the bunker I said to myself ‘I’m going to make par,’” she said. “I had a 25-foot putt but I saw the break, hit a good putt and luckily it went in the hole. That was definitely a turning point to keep moving forward. So was the 16th because it was a hard shot out of the rough. I knew it was going to be hard to stop the ball, so for it to hit the flag and end up close was a big break.”

Brown, meanwhile, dropped seven shots over the last five holes, including double bogeys at the 14th and 16th holes.

“There wasn’t anything I did that was too drastically wrong, but little misses rack up and that’s what happened,” said Brown, who now has two second-place finishes to go with a pair of third-place performances. “But look, it’s another silver medal and I am more than happy. Congratulations to Lara. She played great and fully deserves the trophy.”

View final scores from both championships at www.randa.org