Yao Wins Bama Beach Bash; Big Green Finish Third

Monday, March 21

Gulf Shores, Ala. / Gulf Shores GC

All Day

Dartmouth College

Bama Beach Bash

Samantha Yao (center) shows off her medalist plaque with her teammates.

Yao Wins Bama Beach Bash; Big Green Finish Third

3/21/2022 9:33:00 PM | Women's Golf

Final Results Hole-by-hole scoring

Junior Samantha Yao and sophomore Katherine Sung finished 1-2 in the individual standings

By: Rick Bender

GULF SHORES, Ala. — One day after setting a school record with her 3-under 69 in the opening round of the Bama Beach Bash, junior Samantha Yao continued her stellar play and won the 54-hole tournament with a 217 (+1), becoming Dartmouth's first medalist in four years.

With sophomore teammate Katherine Sung tying for second with a 4-over 220, the Big Green wrapped up the event in third place at 40-over par, 10 strokes behind he co-host, South Alabama and three behind second-place Texas State.

Yao began her day on the 15th hole of the 6,002-yard, par-72 course at Gulf Shores Country Club for the shotgun start to the second round and picked up where she left off yesterday with birdies on her first two holes to take the lead from Texas State's Federica Tavelli-Westerlund. By the time she had finished her first nine, Yao was 4-under for the round with four birdies and five pars and 7-under halfway through the tournament.

A bogey and a double brought her back toward the field, but it was merely a hiccup along the way as she added one more birdie to her round and completed the second 18 at even par. That left her with a four-stroke lead and the final round — which was moved up to today to beat an impending storm — still to go.

The wind began to pick up some in the afternoon as a precursor to that storm, but Yao once again sank a birdie on 15 to start her third tour of the course. She bogeyed 18, then came back to birdie the second as she saw her lead grow to as many as seven strokes. With a big lead, Yao was able to play cautiously and made par on seven of her final 12 holes while bogeying the others, leaving her one stroke shy of the Big Green 54-hole record but giving her the victory.

Sung, who had a wild first round with a school-record seven birdies but a 2-over 74 at the end of the day, continued to play aggressively, dropping birdies on two of the first four holes of her second round. After playing the next 11 holes at 6-over, she closed strong with three consecutive birdies to move up five spots in the standings into a tie for third entering the third round.

After the up-and-down 73 in the second round, Sung matched the total with a much calmer round despite the wind, making par on 13 holes with a pair of birdies to tie for second with Tavelli-Westerlund and South Alabama's Siti Shaari.

Senior Kristen Chen and sophomore Penelope Tir scored in the second round with a 79 (+7) and 80 (+8), respectively, while freshman Claire Xu bounced back from a difficult second round to shave 12 strokes with a 74 (+2) in the final round. Chen ended up at 20-over (236) overall and in a tie for 47th in the 99-player field, Tir 22-over (238) in a tie for 54th and Xu 24-over (240) to tie for 61st.

Dartmouth will be back in action in two weeks for the Prospect Bay Intercollegiate in Gransonville, Maryland on April 2-3.