Cottesloe’s Curtis Luck and Royal Fremantle’s Minjee Lee will contest tomorrow’s Australian Amateur Finals after both secured wins in their Quarter and Semi Final matches at the Grange Golf Club earlier today.
The final will be played tomorrow over 36 holes and the pair will be looking to be the first Western Australians to win the Australian Amateur in the same year.
It is the third straight Australian Amateur Final appearance for World Number 5 Minjee Lee, who defeated fellow Western Australian Jayde Panos 6&5 in the Quarter Final and followed up with a 2&1 victory over Spaniard Luna Sobron.
Lee’s main rival in the matchplay, World Number 2 Su-Hyun Oh of Victoria, was eliminated by last year’s Australian Amateur finalist Jenny Lee of South Australia in the Quarter Finals, however Jenny Lee’s joy was short lived falling to Queensland’s Karis Davidson in the Semis on the 20th hole.
With 2363 places seperating Lee and Davidson in the World Rankings, Minjee Lee will go into the final as the hot favourite to win her second straight Amateur Title. Davidson has clearly been playing well above her World Ranking, earning the eighth seed through the strokeplay rounds and defeating WA’s Alyssa Keir on her way to the final in the second round of matchplay.
In the Men’s event Curtis Luck’s incredible run in 2014 has continued, defeating number four seed David Snyder of America in the Quarter Finals and Todd Sinnottt in the Semi Finals.
Luck has an impressive list of scalps on his way to the final, including Master of the Amateurs Champion Simon Viitakangas, last year’s Australian Amateur Finalist Geoff Drakeford and 2013 Victorian Amateur finalist Todd Sinnott.
The match against Sinnott went down to the wire, with Luck holding a two hole advantage through 14 holes before Sinnott won back to back holes on 15 and 16 to square the ledger. On the final hole, Luck held his nerve while Sinnott found trouble in the rough and had to chip back out onto the fairway. While Luck’s approach hit the flag stick and rolled into the bunker, a great recovery left him with a 3 foot putt for par while Sinnott failed to make his 20 to force the tie into extra holes.
Luck will face number World Number 285 Tae Koh of New Zealand in the Australian Amateur final. While the Men’s and Women’s amateur has never been won by a Western Australian in the same year, this is the fourth time in the tournament’s history that a Western Australian has featured in both finals, most recently in 2008 when current LPGA Tour player Kristie Smith won the final while Michael Foster placed as a finalist, while Brett Rumford’s win in 1998 could be matched by Helen Beatty who fell in the women’s final.
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