by Is it Saturday yet?
After the first two rounds of the 2025 Augusta National Women’s Amateur, seven of the 32 players who made the cut for Saturday’s final round at Augusta National have separated from the pack, including defending champion Lottie Woad. From cutline drama to an on-brand fried egg and a (maybe not so) shocking last-place finisher, here’s what you missed from the second round at Champions Retreat.
‘It was a fried egg!’
The best shot I saw (all bias aside) on Thursday was from Catie Craig. A Fried Egg Golf athlete this week, the Western Kentucky senior had a fried egg lie on the edge of the greenside bunker on the par-3 sixth hole. Craig, a lefty, had an awkward stance and struggled to get her footing before she nearly holed the attempt and ultimately tapped in for a clutch up-and-down par save.
An Agriculture major with an interest in golf course architecture and design, Craig was battling to make the cut at the time but came up short in the end. As a not-so-bad consolation prize, Craig is doing a ride along with the agronomy team at Augusta National before her Friday morning practice round tee time.
Catie Craig on No. 15 during the Augusta National Women's Amateur at Champions Retreat Golf Club. (Photo: Augusta National)
Graduates Exit Early
The field of 71 (Rianne Malixi withdrew with injury before the championship began) featured four players who have already graduated from college. Only one made the cut – Emma McMyler, a graduate of both Xavier University and Duke University who is playing in her second ANWA this year.
On a more surprising note, the other three have all made at least two appearances and missed the cut. Rachel Heck, a former star at Stanford who finished T3 in her 2021 ANWA debut, missed by five shots. Caterina Don, who made the cut in her previous two appearances while at Georgia, is now an assistant coach at Eastern Michigan University for her former coach Josh Brewer, and also missed by five. Playing in her fourth ANWA, this time with her aunt and former LPGA player and PGA of America President Suzy Whaley on the bag, Phoebe Brinker, a former All-American at Duke, missed by eight.
Beginner’s Luck
Nine players advanced to the final round in their ANWA debut: Emma Kaisa Bunch, Caroline Canales, Kary Hollenbaugh, Minseo Jung, Ko Kurabayashi, Mackenzie Lee, Elise Lee, Scarlett Schremmer, and Achiraya Sriwong.
Kurabayashi fired a bogey-free 65 (13 strokes better than the first round) to rocket up the leaderboard from 68th to T27 and advance to the final round.
How Low Can They Go?
This year marks the lowest cut line in six years of the ANWA, and it’s the first year the championship cut has been at or under par. The previous low-cut number? Two-over 146 in 2023.
What’s Up With Tsubasa?
Speaking of missed cuts, we need to talk about Tsubasa Kajitani. The 2021 ANWA champion didn’t return to defend her title in 2022 and finished last by three shots in her return in 2023. After another year off in 2024, the 21-year-old from Japan finished dead last once again this week, this time by six shots.
I couldn’t imagine winning a golf tournament at Augusta National, let alone doing so at 17 years old. For her to lose her game to this extent at such a young age is a wild occurrence. According to Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols, Kajitani has “rededicated herself to the game, saying that she’d like to go to Japan LPGA qualifying school later this year.”
Pace vs. Gravity
After talking to a dozen or so college coaches about Champions Retreat, the host of the first two rounds of the ANWA, I heard an interesting note about the greens. The putting surfaces are severely sloped in some areas, but there are slight and subtle breaks the untrained eye won’t see. Players who prefer to putt with pace avoid some of those breaks, while others who like to bleed the ball into the hole and let gravity do the work are more prone to the breaks.
Overnight rain softened the course just a bit before the second round, which perplexed some players early in the day. A few coaches even struggled with how to advise their players on how to putt on the undulating greens.
If they thought Champions Retreat was a test, I can’t wait to see how they fare on Saturday in the final round at Augusta National.
