Gahm, Ryskova Storm Back to Earn Berths in U.S. Women’s Mid-Am Final

What Happened

Winning the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship requires a combination of skill and fortitude, both mental and physical, through eight rounds of golf over six days. On Wednesday at historic Brae Burn Country Club, two players broke through with late surges in the semifinal round to procure their spots in Thursday morning’s 18-hole final.

Lindsay Gahm, 32, of Louisville, Ky., rallied from two holes down against 2015 champion Lauren Greenlief, 33, of Ashburn, Va., capturing four consecutive holes on the incoming nine to post a 2-and-1 victory. In the other semifinal match, Hana Ryskova, 25, of the Czech Republic, built an early 4-up lead, only to trail by one hole thanks to a barrage of four birdies by opponent Alexandra Vilatte Farret, of France. Ryskova steadied herself and won the par-4 18th hole with a par, then prevailed with another par on the 22nd hole of the match.

The duel tied the record for the longest semifinal match in championship history.

“Just very grateful – so happy, so tired and excited, very excited,” said Ryskova, who defeated Sherry Zhong, of the People’s Republic of China, 5 and 4, in the quarterfinal round earlier on Wednesday. “I was very confident in the morning but very calm, and the afternoon round was the round I play golf for. That was everything. And I love playoffs, so it was great.”

Gahm relied on a quick start to build an insurmountable lead on Alexandra Austin, 31, of Fairfax, Va., in their morning quarterfinal on the way to a 6-and-5 victory. Greenlief and Austin are both members at Springfield (Va.) Golf and Country Club and partnered to reach the semifinals of the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball. Austin, the No. 4 seed, had won four matches this week while six months pregnant with her first child, a son, who is due in January

“My game plan this whole week has been just to play the golf course and not really worry so much about if I’m up or down, because you have to be really careful of just getting on the wrong side of the hole,” said Gahm, who earned Big 10 Freshman of the Year honors at Indiana University before completing the final three years of her college career at Louisiana State University. “I think sometimes you can try to push it too hard if you’re down, and I was really just trying to play the course more than anything, and I think that helped me stay in it when I was 2 down after 12.”

Gahm, who is playing in her third U.S. Women’s Mid-Am and reached the Round of 16 in her 2022 debut, is the granddaughter of Dwight Gahm, the founder of Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, three-time host of the PGA Championship (including 2024) and the 2008 Ryder Cup Matches. She works as a golf irrigation sales manager at ISCO Industries and has a 5-month-old son with husband Austin Gutgsell, who qualified for the 2022 U.S. Mid-Amateur at Erin Hills.

Greenlief birdied the 489-yard, par-5 10th to take a 2-up lead over Gahm in their semifinal match, and she retained that edge through 12 holes, but Gahm birdied the 480-yard, par-5 13th, then took advantage of four consecutive bogeys by Greenlief to reach the final.

“I played solid this morning, and for most of the round this afternoon,” said Greenlief. “I just had two bad putts that kind of got me. I hit it a little too hard on 14 coming up the ridge, and then I missed the slider coming back. And I just didn’t judge my speed right on 16. It was pretty much those two putts that kind of killed me.”

Greenlief’s disappointment at losing the semifinal match was tempered by having broken through to reach the semifinals. The five-time Virginia Women’s Golfer of the Year has reached the quarterfinals in five of the past six Women’s Mid-Ams, and she fended off a comeback bid in the morning quarterfinals from No. 1 seed Jacqueline Setas, 28, of East Lansing, Mich.

Setas, who rallied on Tuesday to win her Round-of-16 match from 3 holes down against Taryn Walker, similarly trailed Greenlief by 3 after the 11th hole on Wednesday. Setas won Nos. 12 and 15 and appeared poised to tie the match when she hit the green on the 221-yard, par-3 17th, while Greenlief was bunkered off the tee. But Greenlief got up and down and Setas three-putted to end the rally.

Farret, who competed for six years on the Ladies European Tour and now works as a pharmacist in Paris, ousted two-time champion Julia Potter-Bobb, of Indianapolis, Ind., 3 and 2, in the quarterfinals. Farret made her U.S. debut last year, winning the Farrell Cup at The Stanwich Club in Greenwich, Conn., conducted by the Metropolitan Golf Association.

Notable

• The 22 holes required to decide the Farret-Ryskova semifinal match equals the longest semifinal match in U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur history. In 2002, four-time champion Ellen Port defeated Lisa DeSimone at Eugene (Ore.) Country Club. The record for most holes in any U.S. Women’s Mid-Am match is 24 holes, which has occurred twice, most recently in 2007, by Carolyn Creekmore over Laura Ladden in the Round of 32 at Desert Forest Golf Club in Carefree, Ariz.
  
  
• The Alexandra Vilette Farret-Hana Ryskova match also continues the record-setting international flavor of this championship, as the first semifinal matchup featuring two international players. The championship also had the most international quarterfinalists (3) and the most international players in the Round of 16 (5, from Canada, Czechia, France, Guatemala and the People’s Republic of China).
  
  
• The players who reached the Round of 16 on Tuesday are exempt into the 2025 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur, Oct. 4-9, at Monterey Peninsula Country Club in Pebble Beach, Calif. Greenlief and Farret are also exempt into the 2026 championship at Montclair Golf Club, in West Orange, N.J.
  
  
• Lindsay Gahm’s 6-and-5 victory on Wednesday morning matches the third-largest margin of victory in a U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur quarterfinal, accomplished twice previously. The only two bigger margins were both by four-time champion Ellen Port, margins of 7 & 6 and 7 & 5 in the 2000 and 2011 quarterfinals, respectively.
  
  
• Lauren Greenlief was bidding to win her second U.S. Women’s Mid-Am nine years after winning her 2015 championship debut. Ellen Port has the record for the longest span between Women’s Mid-Am victories at 11 years (2000 and 2011).

Quotable

“I’m always working on my putting. It failed me a little bit at the end, but I made some good putts throughout the championship on some pretty tricky greens. I don’t have a lot of courses back home where I can play greens like this, so it’s a little bit challenging when you get here and putts slide a lot more. Always working on the putting.” – Lauren Greenlief, evaluating what she needs to work on coming off the solid week at Brae Burn

“It’s a dream come true. We started dating almost three years ago and I played college golf the whole time, and he loves to play. For him being here and caddieing for me, we are here mainly just for the memories, and they’re just getting better and better every day.” – Hana Ryskova, on boyfriend Ethan Short, who is on the bag for her this week

“She [Ryskova] was playing so good at the beginning. I was playing good, but it was not on my side. When I was 4 down on the ninth, I had a birdie, and I think I played my best golf of the week today.” – Alexandra Vilatte Farret, on her run of four birdies in six holes to rally against Hana Ryskova

“I just had a baby boy 5 months ago, so golf has kind of been on the back burner here for the last year. It just feels so good to be back out here playing. I haven’t played much, really. I try to get out there once a weekend if I can. That's kind of the new norm for us.” – Lindsay Gahm

Ron Driscoll is the senior editor of Golf Journal for the USGA. Email him at v-rdriscoll@usga.org.