Leovao, Craig Sisters Card 63s for First-Round Lead at Oak Hills

What Happened

Janae Leovao picked a good time to make her first competitive hole-in-one. That ace – on the 171-yard second hole at Oak Hills Country Club – buoyed Leovao and twin sister, Jasmine, to an 8-under-par 63 in Saturday’s first round of the 9th U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship.

The 20-year-old twins from Oceanside, Calif., share the lead with another set of sisters, Caroline and Catie Craig, of Sautee Nacoochee, Ga. The 63s are the second-lowest 18-hole scores in the championship’s brief history.

In 2019 at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville, Fla., Faith Choi and Aneka Seumanutafa carded a 60 in Round 1.

The 2021 champions, Alexa Saldana, of Mexico, and Savannah Barber, of Fort Worth, Texas, sit one stroke back with New Mexico State University teammates Alexandria Armendariz, of Las Cruces, N.M., and Emma Kaisa Bunch, of Denmark, one of the 10 players on the final Annika Award list for the nation’s top collegiate female golfer. Greensboro, Ga., 16-year-olds Kallyn Black and Lili Nelson were another stroke back at 6-under 65.

Weather greeted the players with overcast skies and temperatures in the mid-to-low 80s and winds in the teens.

After sister Jasmine opened with a birdie on the par-4 first, Janae watched her 8-iron tee shot on No. 2 find the hole to get the side to 3 under.

“I definitely was shaking after that, so I had to settle down and forget about it,” said Janae when asked if the team’s mindset suddenly changed. “Put the past in the past and keep moving forward like nothing happened. And now I can celebrate that I got a hole-in-one.”

The early theatrics proved to be a good omen for the Long Beach State University sophomores. Janae rolled in a 33-foot birdie on the par-3 13th and Jasmine, the 2023 and 2024 Big West Conference individual champion, got up and down from a greenside bunker on the 188-yard, par-3 closing hole, converting a 12-footer.

Jasmine came in fresh off winning the Big West Conference title (Janae tied for third) and finishing eighth in last week’s NCAA Cle Elum (Wash.) Regional, which earned her an individual berth to next week’s NCAA Championships at La Costa in Carlsbad, Calif. But the sisters also are dealing with academic finals scheduled for next week.

“I’m winging it with my finals,” said Jasmine. “[We] probably should start thinking about it. Right now, I I’m focusing on golf and I’ll deal with school later.”

School is in the rearview mirror for the Craig sisters – Caroline, 23, completed her graduate year at Indiana University after transferring from the University of Georgia, while Catie, 21, is a rising senior at Western Kentucky University. Both arrived at Oak Hills full of momentum. Caroline shared the Big 10 Conference individual title while helping the Hoosiers win the team championship. Catie, the 2023 Conference USA champion who advanced to the Round of 16 in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Amateur, posted top-10s in all 10 regular-season events in 2023-24, including a pair of victories.

In the postseason, Catie had a disappointing tie for 58th in the NCAA East Lansing (Mich.) Regional as an individual. Indiana also failed to advance from the same site, leaving both sisters an opportunity to fully focus on competing in their first U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball. Despite a bogey on the par-4 seventh, the duo registered nine birdies.

“We just hit really solid shots,” said Caroline, who has aspirations of being a golf coach. “We gave ourselves [birdie] opportunities every single time. And if we got out of position, we just tried to play smart.”

Rising college juniors Saldana (University of Houston) and and Barber (University of Oklahoma), arrived at Oak Hills with a sour taste from NCAA regionals. The Cougars missed advancing to finals by a stroke in Auburn, Ala., while Barber’s Sooners had a rough final day in Las Vegas.

They resorted back to the good vibes they had three years ago in their championship run, registering seven birdies.

Bunch, meanwhile, enjoyed a monster 2023-24 campaign for New Mexico State, winning five tournaments, including the Conference USA championship to earn a berth in the NCAA Cle Elum Regional as an individual, where she tied for 24th in chilly conditions. So the CUSA Player of the Year and Danis National Team member arrived at her first USGA championship with solid momentum. Armendariz, however, didn’t post a competitive round for the Aggies as a freshman. Nevertheless, she delivered the side’s shot of the day on the 161-yard, 13th hole. Her ball stopped inches from the flagstick for a tap-in birdie. Bunch added a final birdie on the par-5 15th, but three closing pars left them one behind the leaders.

What’s Next

Each of the 64 sides will play their final round of stroke play on Sunday with the low 32 scorers advancing to match play, beginning on Monday. Admission is free and spectators are encouraged to attend.

Notable

• University of Colorado rising junior Morgan Miller, of Austin, Texas, had the honor of hitting the first tee shot.
  
  
• Janae Leovao wasn’t the only player to register a hole-in-one in Round 1. Avery Blake also aced the 171-yard, second hole with a 7-iron. They are the fourth and fifth holes-in-one in championship history.
  
  
• Three solo sides are competing this week for a variety of reasons. Elle Nachmann, who is playing in her fifth U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball, was supposed to team with U.S. National Junior Team member Chloe Kovelesky but the Floridian underwent knee surgery and is just getting healthy. Sofia Cherif Essakali and Emma Grace Messenger also were without partners Aphrodite Deng and Brooke Patterson, respectively. Essakali carded a 2-over 73 on her own ball.
  
  
• Nachmann, 20, of Boca Raton, Fla., just graduated in three years from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and will soon start a job on Wall Street.
  
  
• If preparing for a national championship isn’t hard enough, how about squeezing in an AP (advanced placement) final around the Texas state high school tournament and the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball. Veronika Exposito, a senior at The Woodlands High in suburban Houston, played in the 6A state tournament on Monday and Tuesday, drove back to The Woodlands for her AP final in environmental science on Wednesday and then made the three-hour trek to San Antonio for Thursday’s first practice round of the Four-Ball with partner Grace Heinle. Adding to the hectic schedule for the University of Louisville signee: her regular finals are next week. Exposito and Heinle shot 2-under 69.
  
  
• Exposito wasn’t the only player in the field dealing with an AP exam. Lisa Copeland, a sophomore from Naperville, Ill., missed both practice rounds to take the AP History test off-site in San Antonio. She studied all day Thursday, and the exam was Friday. Once she and partner, Haeri Lee, got into the field earlier this year as alternates, Copeland and her parents spent three hours making phone calls to change her testing site to a school in San Antonio. If the side qualifies for match play and advances to the Round of 16, Copeland will likely force Lee to play solo as her AP Language and Composition final is on Tuesday.  The duo posted a 3-under 68 on Saturday.
  
  
• Catie Craig had a familiar face in her pairing in Western Kentucky teammate Sydney Hackett. Hackett is competing with Melanie Walker. Another future college teammate pairing saw Texas A&M 2024 signee Vanessa Borovilos grouped with 2025 verbal commit Brynn Kort. Kort and Gracie McGovern (Texas Christian University signee) posted a 5-under 66. Borovilos and Indiana University 2024 signee Cara Heisterkamp shot 68.
  
  
• Alaythia Hinds celebrated her 18th birthday on Saturday, shooting 70 with partner Erica Villegas. 

Quotable

“Me being left-handed and playing a draw and her being right-handed and playing a cut, we have the exact same shot shape, and we also carry it the exact same distance,” said Catie. “We have the same mindset when putting, so we’re feeding off each other on every single shot. We were just on the same page all the time.” – Catie Craig

“Hopefully we get dessert. I want dessert.” – Janae Leovao when asked how she would celebrate her ace

“It’s just good being in my home state. We’re pretty used to Texas golf courses. I think it sets up nice. – Savannah Barber on Oak Hills C.C.

“I texted Alex because I knew she was going to be on the team and she’s local from Las Cruces, and I was like, ‘Hey do you want to play with me?’ I thought it was good for us to get to know each other, and it just worked.” – Emma Kaisa Bunch on how her partnership began last summer with Alexandria Armendariz

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