Ni (-11) Heats Up El Caballero to Earn Medalist Honors

What Happened

Covered from head to toe, including a facial mask, Kinsley (Nixin) Ni was clearly shielding any exposed skin from the searing Southern California sun. But what Ni didn’t hide during the stroke-play portion of the 75th U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at El Caballero Country Club was her remarkable golf talent.

The 16-year-old from the People’s Republic of China, who has spent the last three years living in the Inland Empire of Greater Los Angeles, backed up Monday’s opening-round 66 with a bogey-free, 6-under-par 65 Tuesday to earn medalist honors by four strokes.

Her 11-under 131 total was just one shot off the 36-hole championship record set in 2005 by Taylor Karle at BanBury Golf Course in Eagle, Idaho. Three others have posted 131, including 2021 U.S. Girls’ Junior champion Rose Zhang, now a two-time winner on the LPGA Tour.

Jasmine Koo, 18, of Cerritos, Calif., an incoming University of Southern California freshman who was just named to the 2024 USA Curtis Cup Team, and 2023 U.S. Girls’ Junior runner-up Rianne Malixi, 17, of the Philippines, each posted 7-under 135. They are the two highest-ranked players in the field according to the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking®/WAGR® at Nos. 8 and 19, respectively. Koo followed her opening-round 69 with a 66, while Malixi posted rounds of 68-67. She was also bogey-free on Tuesday.

Reigning U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball champion and U.S. National Junior Team member Asterisk Talley, 15, of Chowchilla, Calif., registered seven birdies in carding a 67 to finish  solo fourth at 6-under 136. Three times in the round, she had consecutive birdies, including on Nos. 8 and 9 to close out the day. Talley shared low-amateur honors in the 2024 U.S. Women’s Open Presented by Ally at Lancaster (Pa.) Country Club.

First-round co-leader Aphrodite Deng, 14, of Canada, was another two strokes back at 137 (65-72), along with 2023 U.S. Women’s Open qualifier Kaili Xiao (68-69), 15, of China, Yuka Nishina (68-69), 14, of Japan, and 18-year-old Canadian Vanessa Borovilos (70-67), a 2024 Texas A&M signee who made six consecutive 3s to close her round.

Kylee Choi, 17, of Murrieta, Calif., who matched Deng’s 65 on Monday, shot a 2-over 73 and was among the group at 138, along with Natalie Yen, 17, of West Linn, Ore., and 2024 U.S. Women’s Open qualifier Amelie Zalsman, 15, of St. Petersburg, Fla.

The cut for match play came at 5-over 147, with an 8-for-3 playoff to decide the final spots in the 64-player draw. It was suspended on the second playoff hole due to darkness and will resume at 7 a.m. PDT.

With temperatures creeping into the low 90s for a second consecutive day, Ni, who battles sun allergies, took every precaution to ensure her golf game, and not the extreme heat, would take center stage. Coming off a runner-up finish to Canadian 13-year-old Clara Ding in the American Junior Golf Association’s RLX Ralph Lauren Classic at Bethpage State Park’s Black Course, and the Ryder Cup-style Wyndham Cup in South Carolina, where she beat 2022 U.S. Girls’ Junior runner-up Gianna Clemente in singles, Ni had plenty of good mojo for her second USGA championship and first U.S. Girls’ Junior (she missed the cut in last year’s U.S. Women’s Amateur at nearby Bel-Air C.C.).

“She’s just really solid all-around,” said Clemente, the 2023 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball champion and No. 23 player in WAGR who advanced to match play with a 36-hole total of 1-under 141 (72-69). “There’s not really a strength or a weakness. Very solid. She doesn’t hit a lot of shots offline and she’s really good with the putter. She’s a really good player and I saw that last week.”

Two years ago, at 14 years, 11 months, 6 days, Ni became the youngest winner of a China LPGA Tour event when she captured the Golf Liquor Challenge. Last summer, she was the runner-up in the Girls’ Junior PGA Championship in Hot Springs, Ark. Those performances have boosted Ni to No. 149 in the WAGR.

Taking advantage of near-windless conditions and receptive greens, Ni went out in 2-under 34 and posted four back-nine birdies, including a 15-footer on the par-4 18th to close stroke play in style. She also made three consecutive birdies from No. 12, which could have been four had she not missed a 3-footer on No. 11.

“That was a pretty solid round,” said Ni, a rising high school junior at Orion International Academy in Ontario, Calif. “Six birdies was pretty good. My iron shots are pretty good this week, and also putting. But I did miss one [birdie putt] today.”

Malixi, who has played tournaments in 12 different countries over the past two years, including the U.S., Cambodia, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, got off to a blistering start with four birdies over her first seven holes, but then settled in for a streak of 11 consecutive pars.

Like Ni, Malixi, who has committed to attend Duke University in 2025, has enjoyed a solid competitive year that includes a win in the Women’s Australian Master of the Amateurs, a runner-up finish to Asterisk Talley in the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley, and the same result in The Royal Junior in Japan. She also finished fifth in the Asia-Pacific Women’s Amateur and Korean Women’s Open, and eighth in the Australian Women’s Amateur.

Koo’s meteoric rise up the WAGR started a year ago when she won the Women’s Western Amateur, a title she couldn’t defend this year due to the conflict with the U.S. Girls’ Junior. A 13th-place showing in the Chevron Championship, a win in the recent Toyota Junior World Cup in Japan, second in the AJGA’s Rolex Tournament of Champions and third at Sage Valley were all part of that surge, which landed her a spot on the Curtis Cup team that will travel to Sunningdale Golf Club in England next month.

On Tuesday, Koo played a three-hole stretch on her second nine – she started on No. 10 – in 4 under, which included an eagle-3 on the par-5 seventh. Facing a 233-yard second shot, Koo hit driver off the deck to 15 feet.

“That was always the plan ever since I first saw that hole,” said Koo, who is making the 45-minute daily commute from her parents’ home. “A 3-wood is not going to get there because it’s going to catch the wind. I was like, ‘How about I just go driver off the deck.’ If I hit it bad, it’s in that [greenside] bunker and it’s kind of a simple up and down. I choked it down a little. It was solid. But it was fading a little towards the bunker on the right. I got mixed reviews [from people watching]. One said it landed in the bunker and hopped out. One said it hit the rake. It did something.”

Talley, meanwhile, has an opportunity to do something only three previous females have achieved: win multiple USGA titles in the same year. Pearl Sinn (1988), Jennifer Song (2009) and Eun Jeong Seong (2016) are the only players to pull off the feat. In May, she teamed with fellow Northern Californian Sarah Lim to take the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball title at Oak Hills Country Club in San Antonio.

That came on the heels of attending the inaugural U.S. National Junior Team camp, qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Open, winning the prestigious Junior Invitational at Sage Valley and finishing eighth in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

“I’m trying not to think too far ahead of myself,” said Talley, who went 2-1-1 in last week’s Wyndham Cup for the West squad, including a singles win over Elizabeth Rudisill with an eagle 3 on the final hole. “I’m just trying to win each match one by one.”    

That will be the overlying theme the next four days.   

What’s Next

The 64 players who survived the cut and qualified for match play will play a single match on Wednesday. The Round of 64 will commence at 8 a.m. PDT. Match play continues on Thursday and Friday with the 36-hole championship match scheduled for Saturday. Peacock will stream the semifinals and afternoon portion of the championship match live with Golf Channel re-airing the broadcast on a tape-delay basis. Admission is free and the public is encouraged to attend.

Notable

• The 8-for-3 playoff for the final spots in the 64-player draw was completed on Wednesday morning. Marley Pedrique garnered the first spot with a birdie on the par-3 10th hole, earning the No. 62 seed. Annie Jin parred No. 11 for seed No. 63. Cathy Zhang nabbed the final spot on Wednesday morning when Jillian Fatkin missed a 6-foot bogey putt on the par-4 11th hole. Zhang was already in for bogey on Tuesday before play was suspended due to darkness.
  
  
• Four of the eight members of the USGA’s inaugural U.S. National Junior Team advanced to match play. Besides Asterisk Talley and Gianna Clemente, Texan Shyla Brown and Scarlet Schremmer, of Birmingham, Ala., qualified. Also advancing was 2024 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball runner-up Brynn Kort, Sarah Hammett, who took part in the USA vs. Australia match at SentryWorld, five-time U.S. Girls’ Junior competitor and 2023 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball champ Avery Zweig, and 2023 U.S. Girls’ Junior semifinalist Leigh Chien.
  
  
• Another player to survive the cut was Blayne Brown, of Riverside, Calif., who appeared in the USGA promo spot for the newly created U.S. National Development Team. The TV spots aired during broadcast coverage of the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open.
  
  
• Notable players who failed to qualify for match play included U.S. National Junior Team members Emerie Schartz, Ryleigh Knaub, Nikki Oh and Chloe Kovelesky. Kovelesky was one of two competitors in the field who qualified for U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship at El Caballero C.C. Also missing the cut was Sarah Lim, who won this year’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball title with Talley, and 12-year-old Hailey Kim, the youngest player in the field from nearby Simi Valley.
  
  
• UCLA graduate and 2014 AIG Women’s British Open champion Mo Martin, who got to know members of the inaugural U.S. National Junior Team during the May camp at Atlanta Athletic Club, caddied for Ryleigh Knaub on Tuesday. The Pasadena, Calif., native did not caddie any of the previous rounds.
  
  
• Once again, the U.S. Girls’ Junior attracted 75-plus Division I women’s golf programs as head and assistant coaches seek the next generation of talent. Among that group were two-time U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links champion/1998 USA Curtis Cupper Jo Jo Robertson (Texas Tech), 2022 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur champion Krissy Carman (Oregon), 2002 USA Curtis Cupper Emily Bastel Glaser (Florida), 2014 USA Curtis Cupper Erynne Lee (UCLA) and 2016 USA Curtis Cupper Bethany Wu (USC). Also on property this week was 1986 U.S. Girls’ Junior champion Pat Hurst, currently the associate player development representative for Acushnet Company (Titleist/FootJoy).
  
  
• Five competitors in the field are either current or alums of the First Tee. That includes Megan Meng (Greater Trenton), who won the girls’ division of the 2022 Pure Insurance Open at Pebble Beach, an event on PGA Tour Champions that incorporates First Tee participants and PGA Tour Champions competitors. Meng also won the 2023 First Tee Championship, while Norah Yang (Silicon Valley) took the 2024 title. Other First Tee players in the field are Camille Thai (Silicon Valley), Darla May Dela Torre (Greater Sacramento) and Sophia Li (Metropolitan New York).  
• Jasmine Koo’s caddie for the first two rounds of stroke play was Royal Portrush Golf Club member Kane Hunter, who is here from Northern Ireland with a couple of other countrymen for the summer to caddie at The Los Angeles Country Club, site of last year’s U.S. Open. Hunter won’t be on the bag during match play due to a prior commitment. Koo’s 19-year-old brother, Joshua, a member of the Pepperdine University golf team who qualified for the 2021 U.S. Junior Amateur at The Country Club of North Carolina, will be on the bag.
  
  
• Texan Veronika Exposito improved her score by 12 strokes on Tuesday, going from a 79 to a 4-under 67 to qualify for match play.
  
  
• Hsin Tai Lin withdrew prior to the second round with a wrist injury.

Quotable

“I don’t feel outside pressure whatsoever. It’s honestly more like an honor for me that people are interested in my game. Internally, though, a lot of people brought up that [I’m] the favorite. I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got to play really well.’ When I was like 3 over [on Monday], I was like, ‘Oh my!’ If I just believe in myself and believe in my game, everything will work out.” – Jasmine Koo on the high expectations for being the top-ranked competitor in the field

“I wasn’t checking the leader board. I just want to win the tournament. That would be huge.” – Koo when asked about the possibility of being medalist

“I've been training a lot with my dad back in Manila. I go play with a … [local] pro and then we do match play just really prepping for this event and keeping the competitive juices. [My dad] just keeps the pressure alive whenever I practice, which is really helpful for this week.” – Rianne Malixi

“I am just going to play pretty aggressive.” – Kinsley Ni on her philosophy for match play.

“I’m excited for match play. It’s more fun than stroke play. You’re not worried about what score you have to shoot.” – Asterisk Talley

“I feel great. Obviously, it’s just about making it to match play. Match play is very up and down, so I don’t think that where you are at before match play matters all that much. I feel like I’m playing really well, and hopefully we can get some putts to drop in matches and win some matches.” – Gianna Clemente, who has been a finalist and semifinalist the past two years in the U.S. Girls’ Junior

David Shefter is a senior staff writer at the USGA. Email him at dshefter@usga.org.