WICHITA, Kan. — LSU senior golfer Meredith Duncan is one 36-hole golf match away from the championship of the 101st United States Women’s Amateur golf championship after winning her semifinal match Friday in convincing fashion.
Duncan, a 3-and-1 winner over Emily Bastel of Upper Sandusky, Ohio, will now face Nicole Perrot of Chile in the 36-hole final which is scheduled to begin at 8:15 a.m. Coverage of the final 18 holes will take place live on ESPN at 2 p.m. CDT. Internet scoring coverage of the match can be found on www.uswamateur.org.
Duncan took the lead for good with a birdie putt on the eighth hole of the match, after giving away a 1-up lead on the seventh with a bogey. The Shreveport native gave Bastel little chance to push the comeback button as Duncan calmly hit fairways and greens to put her in position for safe pars.
Duncan ended the match on the 17th hole, having only gone to the 18th hole once this week in extending her summer match play record to 19-1 as she will now try to add the Amateur title to titles won at the Western Amateur and the North-South event in North Carolina.
Duncan has mowed through the competition in her side of the bracket with a calmness that has amazed the media gathered for this year’s event.
“Too much adrenaline is not good for me,” said Duncan when asked about her calmness. “The more pumped up I get, I have to calm myself down, because….I walk fast, then I start swinging fast.”
Duncan is the elder statesman of the field at age 21 and will face a tough challenge in young 17-year-old Nicole Perrot of Chile, a 3-and-2 winner over Joo-Mi Kim of Korea. Perrot is trying to become the first winner of the U.S. Junior and Women’s Amateur title in the same year. In fact, she won the junior title just last week.
The winner of the title also gets an exemption into the 2002 United States Women’s Open.