News
2022 Curtis Cup: Complete day one summary

It’s important to understand the playing field, and to then reveal the characters and the story line that featured on day one of the 2022 Curtis Cup. The movement of Merion is a two-segment revelation. The first part is the topography, and the second part is the rigor of the layout. Merion moves up and down, with a fair amount of sideways, from the second tee on. The first hole, as happens at many great courses, does nothing more than mask what is to come. As for the second portion of the explanation, you make your birdies in the first ten holes of the course. You might steal one or two from 11 through 13, but you’re just as likely to make a mistake, and make bogey or worse…and kick yourself. Two shortish fours and a wee three, and none is easy.
After crossing the entry way, you face the final five holes, perhaps the toughest stretch in championship golf. If your strategy is to play safe and hit fairway and green, you might face an approach from the wrong side, and a seventy-feet putt. Massive greens, demanding long approaches, and twisting fairways that repel your ball toward the rough. Did I mention that it’s thick, and that there is no intermediate cut to slow your roll?
Everything mentioned in that extended cut of the opening paragraph is critical to understanding why the score is 5-1 after one day of competition. The intelligent, strategic golfer resists temptation, and lets the match-play opponent make the mistake. As can be expected, the team with five points did a better job than the team with one.
Morning Matches
Team USA, led off by the Rachels (Kuehn and Heck), jumped out to a two-match lead at Merion, but feisty GBI grabbed the final match of the antemeridian hours to close to a one-two deficit. Team GBI traditionally opens with foursomes (aka alternate shot) when it hosts the match, so to be just one point down on the road is nearly a win.
Team USA is supremely comfortable with the four ball format (aka better ball) and showed with birdies at hole one, in the first two matches. In the first match, after the hosts took early advantage, GBI’s Annabell Fuller and Hannah Darling came back with birdie wins at holes six and eight to take the lead away. That lead would last for three holes, when the Rachels would notch a second birdie. The pair from Stanford and Wake Forest would drop yet another win at the wee 13th, a tiny par three tucked between the clubhouse and Ardmore Road. The grueling closing stretch at Merion yielded no birdies over the final five holes, and Team USA held on for a one-up win.
In match two, Amari Avery and Megha Ganne of the Red, White & Blue hung birdie shingles on holes one and three to jump out early. Lauren Walsh and Caley McGinty halved the lead to one with birdie at the sixth, but AAMG added a third birdie at the eighth to regain the two-up advantage. Unlike match one, the closing stretch was all about the birdies. The hosts expanded their lead to four-up with wins a t13 and 14. GBI grabbed one back at the 15th with a fine birdie, but halving pars at the quarry 16th ended the match, in favor of Team USA.
Match three played out a bit differently from the first two. The teams did not strike until the fourth hole, when the hosts made birdie at the long par five. They gave the advantage back on the next hole, when neither Zhang nor Migliaccio could manage a par. The back-nine par three holes would prove to be friends to the visitors, as the match remained even until the 13th. GBI made a deuce to retake the lead, and then added another birdie two at the barbaric 17th, a quarry hole unlike any other in the game. With a win at that hole, the pair of Duncan and Heath secured a critical point for the Blue side.
Afternoon Matches
We are all believers in the comeback, but when a team posts three double bogies in the first five holes (and loses all three holes) there’s a limit to how much you can believe in comebacks. For whatever reason, the Hannah Darling-Louise Duncan partnership was over before it began. Entrusted with beginning the afternoon charge, the pair failed to win a hole of the 15 that were played. The USA side of Latanna Stone and Jensen Castle was fresh after sitting out the morning matches. They simply bided their time, made one birdie, avoided big numbers, and won by 5 and 3.
The second match was defined by the notion of take and give. The GBI pair of Caley McGinty and Emily Price won three holes against the six captured by their USA counterparts, Amari Avery and Rachel Kuehn. The Take and Give comes into play when you examine what GBI did on each subsequent hole to their wins. After winning the seventh, they made bogey at eight to halve. Par would have won. Subsequent to capturing the 11th with birdie, they shortsided their approach into the 12th greenside bunker and lost the hole to a par. Finally, a par for a win at the 14th was followed by a bogey for a loss at the 15th. That final dagger ended the match, at 3 and 2 for the host duo. This is the highest level of competitive amateur golf, and mistakes made are always paid.
The odds were long for Team GBI in match number three, as Stanford University teammates Rachel Heck and Rose Zhang paired up against Charlotte Heath and Amelia Williamson. Of course did Heath and Williamson jump out to a two-up lead after three holes. That’s how logic works. After the round, Rose Zhang revealed that she and Heck sang Let’s Get Down To Business from Mulan in the 16th fairway, but they might as well have been humming it from the fifth tee to the 10th green. The pair won four of those five holes and halved the other. In so doing, they turned a two-hole deficit into an equal advantage. The match ended at the sixteenth green, where the Red, White, and Blue won its seventh hole of the match, to close out the visitors by 4 and 2.
News
Tour Rundown: Bend, but don’t break

I’m going to gush in this intro paragraph, to get the emo stuff done early. I’ve not pulled harder for a professional to win, than Cameron Young. I coach golf in New York state, and each spring, my best golfers head to a state championship in Poughkeepsie. I first saw Cameron there as a 9th grade student. I saw him three more times after that. I reconnecected with Coach Haas from Wake Forest, an old interview subject from my days on the Old Gold and Black, the Wake newspaper. He was there to watch Cameron. After four years at Wake Forest, Young won on the Korn Ferry Tour, made it to the big tour, almost won two majors, almost won five other events, and finally got the chalice about 25 minutes from the Wake campus. Congratulations, Cameron. You truly are a glass of the finest. #MotherSoDear
OK, let’s move on to the Tour Rundown. The major championship season closed this week in Wales, with the Women’s Open championship. The PGA Tour bounced through Greensboror, N.C., while the PGA Tour Americas hit TO (aka, Toronto) for a long-winded event. The Korn Ferry lads made a stop in Utah, one of just two events for that tour in August. The many-events, golf season is winding down, as we ease from summer toward fall in the northern hemisphere. Let’s bask in the glory of an August sunrise, and run down a quartet of events from the first weekend of the eighth month.
LET/LPGA @ Women’s Open: Miyu bends, but she doesn’t break
Royal Porthcawl was not a known commodity in the major tournament community. The Welsh links had served as host to men’s senior opens, men’s amateurs, and Curtis and Walker Cups in prior years, but never an Open championship for the women or the men. The last-kept secret in UK golf was revealed once again to the world this week, as the best female golfers took to the sandy stage.
Mao Saigo, Grace Kim, Maja Stark, and Minjee Lee hoped to add a second major title to previous wins this season, but only Lee was able to finish inside the top ten. The 2025 playing of the Women’s Open gave us a new-faces gallery from day one. The Kordas and Thitikulls were nowhere to be found, and it was the Mayashitas, Katsus, and Lim Kims that secured the Cymru spotlight. The first round lead was held at 67 by two golfers. One of them battled to the end, while the other posted 81 on day two, and missed the cut. Sitting one shot behind was Miyu Yamashita.
On day two, Yamashita posted the round of the tournament. Her 65 moved her to the front of the aisle, in just her fourth turn around a women’s Open championship. With the pre-event favorites drifting off pace, followers narrowed into two camps: those on the side of an underdog, and others hoping for a weekend charge from back in the pack. In the end, we had a bit of both.
On Saturday, Yamashita bent with 74 on Saturday, offering rays of hope to her pursuing pack. England’s Charley Hull made a run on Sunday closing within one shot before tailing off to a T2 finish with Minami Katsu. Katsu posted the other 65 of the week, on Saturday, but could not overtake her countrywoman, Yamashita. wunderkind Lottie Woad needed one round in the 60s to find her pace, but could only must close-to’s, ending on 284 and a tie with Minjee for eighth.
On Sunday, Yamashita put away the thoughts of Saturday’s struggles, with three-under 33 on the outward half. She closed in plus-one 37, but still won by two, for a first Major and LPGA title.
PGA Tour @ Wyndham: Young gathers first title near home
Cameron Young grew up along the Hudson river, above metro New York, but he also calls Winston-Salem home. He spent four years as a student and athlete at Wake Forest University, then embarked on tour. This week in Greensboro, after a bit of a break, Young opened with 63-62, and revved the engine of Is this the week once more. Runner-up finishes at the Open, the PGA, and a handful of PGA Tour events had followers wonder when the day would come.
On Saturday, Young continued his torrid pace with 65, giving him a five-shot advantage over his closest pursuer. Sunday saw the Scarborough native open with bogey, then reel off five consecutive birdies to remind folks that his time had, at last, arrived. Pars to the 16th, before two harmless bogeys coming home, made Young the 1000th winner of an official PGA Tour event (dating back to before there was a PGA Tour) throughout history. What’s next? I have a suspicion, but I’m not letting on. Mac Meissner closed with 66 to finish solo 2nd, while Mark Hubbard and Alex Noren tied for third.
Korn Ferry Tour @ Utah Championship: Are you Suri it’s Julian?
Who knows exactly when the flower will bloom? Julian Suri played a solid careet at Duke University, then paid his dues on the world’s minor tours for three years. He won twice on two tours in Europe, in 2017. Since then, the grind has continued for the journeyman from New York city. At age 34, Suri broke through in Beehive state, outlasting another grinder (Spencer Levin) and four others, by two shots.
Taylor Montgomery began the week with 62, then posted 64, then 68, and finally, 70. That final round was his undoing. He finished in that second-place tie, two back of the leader. Trace Crowe, Barend Botha, and Kensei Hirata made up the last of the almost quintet. As for Suri, his Sunday play was sublime. His nines were 32 and 31, with his only radar blip a bogey at ten. He closed in style with one final birdie, to double his winning margin. Hogan bloomed late…might Suri?
PGA Tour Americas @ Osprey Valley Open presented by Votorantim Cimentos – CBM Aggregates
Some tournament names run longer than others. This week in Toronto, at the Heathlands course at TPC Toronto, we might have seen the longest tournament title in recorded history. The OVOPBVCCBMA was a splendid affair. It saw three rounds of 62 on Thursday, but of those early risers, only Drew Goodman would stick around until the end. 64 was the low tally on day two, and two of those legionnaires managed to finish inside the top three at week’s end. Saturday brought a 63 from Patrick Newcomb, and he would follow with 64 on Sunday, to finish solo fourth.
Who, then, ended up winning the acronym of the year? It turns out that Carson Bacha had the right stuff in TeeOhhh. Bacha and Jay Card III posted 63 and 64, respectively, on day four, to tie for medalist honors at 23-under 261. Nathan Franks was one shot adrift, despite also closing with 63. If you didn’t go low on Sunday, it was about the check, not the championship.
Bacha and JC3 returned to the 18th hole twice in overtime. Card nearly chipped in from the thick stuff for birdie, while Bacha peeked and shoved a ten-feet attempt at the win. On the second go-round, Card was long with his approach, into the native grasses once more. He was unable to escape, and a routine par from the fairway was enough to earn the former Auburn golfers a first KFT title.
Card III and Bacha both miss their birdie tries on the first playoff hole.
We’ll play 18 again @OspreyOpen. pic.twitter.com/vNpHTdkHDg
— PGA TOUR Americas (@PGATOURAmericas) August 3, 2025
Tour Photo Galleries
Photos from the 2025 Wyndham Championship

GolfWRX is live this week from the final event of the PGA Tour’s regular season, the Wyndham Championship.
Photos are flowing into the forums from Sedgefield Country Club, where we already have a GolfWRX spirit animal Adam Schenk WITB and plenty of putters for your viewing pleasure.
Check out links to all our photos below, which we’ll continue to update as more arrive.
General Albums
- 2025 Wyndham Championship – Tuesday #1
- 2025 Wyndham Championship – Tuesday #2
- 2025 Wyndham Championship – Tuesday #3
WITB Albums
- Chandler Phillips – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Davis Riley – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Scotty Kennon – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Austin Duncan – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Will Chandler – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Kevin Roy – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Ben Griffin – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Peter Malnati – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Ryan Gerard – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Adam Schenk – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Kurt Kitayama – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Camilo Villegas – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Matti Schmid – WITB – 2025 Wyndham Championship
Pullout Albums
- Denny McCarthy’s custom Cameron putters – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Swag Golf putters – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Karl Vilips TM MG5 wedges – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- New Bettinardi putters – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Matt Fitzpatrick’s custom Bettinardi putters – 2025 Wyndham Championship
- Cameron putters – 2025 Wyndham Championship
See what GolfWRXers are saying and join the discussion in the forums.
News
BK’s Breakdowns: Kurt Kitayama’s Winning WITB, 3M Open

Kurt Kitayama just won his 2nd PGA Tour event at the 3M Open. Kurt is a Bridgestone staffer but with just the ball and bag. Here are the rest of the clubs he used to secure a win at the 2025 3M Open.
Driver: Titleist GT3 (11 degrees, D1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD VF 7 TX
3-wood: Titleist GT1 3Tour (14.5 degrees, A3 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 8 TX
7-wood: Titleist GT1 (21 degrees, A1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 9 TX
Irons: TaylorMade P7CB (4), TaylorMade P7MB (5-PW)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100
Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (52-12F, 56-14F), Vokey Design WedgeWorks (60-K*)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400
Putter: Scotty Cameron Studio Style Newport 2 Tour Prototype
Grip: SuperStroke Zenergy 1.0PT
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet
Ball: Bridgestone Tour B XS (with Mindset)
Sam Boulden
Jun 11, 2022 at 10:46 pm
If you’re going to employ writers this incompetent, you need to invest in editors. This was so poorly written.