PINEHURST, N.C. — LSU women’s golfer Meredith Duncan scored her second major women’s national amateur golf title in less than a month, winning the final match Friday of the 99th North-South Women’s Amateur at the Pinehurst No. 2 course.
Duncan downed former Texas A&M golfer Mimi Epps of Houston, 6 and 5, in the 36-hole championship match. Duncan two weeks ago defeated Southern Cal’s Kandie Kung to win the 101st Women’s Western Amateur championship. The 21-year-old senior to be at LSU from Shreveport is halfway home on this magical summer tour of golf, with the Trans-National Amateur and the United States Women’s Amateur still on her summer schedule.
“It’s awesome,” Duncan told reporters after the match. “I played awesome all week. Really, I just played steady.”
Duncan and Epps matched pars for the first four holes of the match, before Epps took advantage on two holes to get a 2-up advantage after eight holes.
Duncan rallied back to even the match with a birdie on the 12th before Epps bogeyed 17 and 18 to send Duncan to the lunch break 2-up.
The LSU second-team All-American, who had eight birdies in two wins on Thursday, got her putter going again in the afternoon round with birdies at
the first, third and fourth to go 5UP in the match. Epps would get it down to 3 with a birdie on five and a Duncan penalty stroke on eight when her ball moved when she addressed it with the putter.
But that was as close as Duncan was going to let her opponent get, with birdies on 10 and 12 advancing the lead to 6-up on the 13th hole, the 31st of the day, where she closed the match out.
“I’m taking everything I can from this and running as fast as I can with it,” Duncan said of her summer tour so far.
Continued performances like this would get Duncan consideration for the 2002 Curtis Cup, the amateur Ryder Cup format women’s matches which take place between America and Great Britain and Ireland.