BATON ROUGE – LSU sophomore Ryleigh Knaub moved through her round of 32 match Friday morning advancing to the round of 16 at the 126th United States Women’s Amateur at The Honors Course in Ooltewah, Tennessee.
Knaub’s round of 16 match was stopped Friday afternoon by heavy rains and lightening that struck a tree near the 17th tee. The round will continue at 7 a.m. ET and there will be an attempt to play the quarterfinal round and as much of the semifinals as possible on Saturday in an attempt to get to the 36-hole championship match on Sunday.
Knaub advanced to the round of 16 with a 2&1 win over Anna Fang of San Diego, California, who is ranked 51st in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.
Basically, the match’s action was mainly on the first nine holes on the prestigious par 72 venue starting at the opening hole when the Debary, Florida golfer birdied the opening hole to go 1UP. Knaub’s par 4 on the fifth hole made her 2UP.
After Fang won the sixth hole, Knaub responded with birdies on the seventh (par 4) and eighth holes (par 3) to go 3UP. While Fang would get the ninth hole to cut the margin to 2Up, Knaub matched Fang hole-for-hole the rest of the way to get the victory, closing the match out on the 17th hole.
In the afternoon round of 16 match against Gabriella Nicastro of Huntsville, Alabama, Nicastro took advantage early on and led 3UP when the match was halted. But Knaub has a great chance to turn the match after a reset and a night’s sleep with plenty of holes to play early Saturday morning.
LSU freshman Raegan Denton also won her first-round match on Thursday and Friday also played in the round of 32. The Australian’s match against Pimchompoo “Pinky” Chaisilprungruang of Thailand went to extra holes after Denton made a great rally in the final two holes of regulation.
Denton birdied the par 5 17th and par 4 18th after spectacular approach shots to send the match back to the first hole for extra play. Chaisilprungruang birdied the 20th hole to win the match.
The Golf Channel is schedule to cover play on Saturday from 8-11 a.m. and 2-5 p.m.