Salt Lake City’s Kelsey Chugg completed her improbable run to the finals of the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship in Houston, winning two matches Wednesday at Champions Golf Club.
Chugg took a 3-and-1 semifinal win over Marissa Mar of San Francisco. She’s trying to become Utah’s first winner of a USGA national event since Clay Ogden in the 2005 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship.
The Women’s Mid-Am is for golfers 25 and older. Chugg, 26, will oppose Mary Jane Hiestand of Naples, Fla., in Thursday’s 18-hole final match. Hiestand, 58, could become the event’s oldest champion. She won two matches that went to the 19th hole Wednesday.
Chugg, a former Weber State golfer and four-time Women’s State Amateur winner, made a big rally just to qualify for match play after shooting an opening-round 85 that included a triple bogey and three double bogeys. She posted a second-round 72 to earn the No. 50 seed for match play among 64 qualifiers, then has won five matches.
She defeated Haylee Hammond of North Carolina 6 and 4 in the quarterfinals, winning four of the last six holes. In the semifinals vs. Mar, a former Stanford golfer, Chugg won the first hole with a birdie and maintained her lead throughout the round. She lost No. 16, reducing her lead to 2 up with two holes to play, but then won No. 17 with a par to end the match.
Chugg described herself as “a little nervous the first day,” but she has succeeded in “just getting my ball-striking back where it usually is and just working on my tempo.”
She works as the membership director of the Utah Golf Association. Other Utah natives in addition to Ogden who have won USGA titles include George Von Elm in the 1926 U.S. Amateur, Scott Hailes in the 1995 U.S. Junior Amateur and Annie Thurman in the 2002 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship.
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