Jensen Castle becomes first UK golfer to win U.S. Women’s Amateur
Jensen Castle made golf history Sunday afternoon.
The University of Kentucky rising junior became the first Wildcats golfer to win the U.S. Women’s Amateur, defeating Taiwan’s Vivian Hou, a rising junior at the University of Arizona, in the championship 36-hole match at Westchester Country Club’s West Course in Rye, New York.
Castle won the championship match with a birdie on the 35th hole, winning 2-up over Hou.
Sunday’s match featured several momentum swings, as each player was 2-up within the opening 16 holes in rainy and wet conditions. Hou finished the first 18 holes 2-up on Castle, before the players took about a 90-minute break before resuming the match.
Castle used that break to her advantage, completely turning the tide of the match during its afternoon portion. She birdied three of the first four holes following the break, going from 2-down to 1-up.
After taking that lead Castle never looked back, playing consistent golf throughout the afternoon leading to her victory.
“It has not registered at all,” Castle told The Golf Channel during the trophy ceremony. “It was just another match. Fairways and greens, that’s all I thought of, and here I am holding this heavy trophy.”
Castle, who entered the tournament ranked No. 248 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Rankings, continually rewrote the record books and defied the odds on her way to the U.S. Women’s Amateur title as the event’s No. 63 seed.
After beginning the stroke play portion of the tournament by shooting a 79 on the par-72 course, Castle shot a 71 in the second round to earn a spot in a 12-for-2 playoff to determine the final players in the match play portion of the event.
Castle and another Kentucky golfer, rising junior Marissa Wenzler, both birdied the first playoff hole to advance to the 64-woman match play field.
Laney Frye, a rising sophomore at Kentucky, was also part of this week’s U.S. Women’s Amateur, an annual event organized by the United States Golf Association that has been played since 1895.
While Frye lost in the first round of match play and Wenzler lost in the round of 32 of match play, Castle continued to advance, beating her performance from last year when she lost in the round of 32.
Castle began match play by defeating the bracket’s No. 2 overall seed, Kennedy Pedigo of Southern Methodist University, before winning her round of 32 match. Castle then cruised to multiple-hole victories in the round of 16 and in the quarterfinals to advance to the weekend.
By doing so, it’s believed Castle became the first Wildcat to reach the semifinals of the U.S. Women’s Amateur.
Castle then became the first Kentucky golfer to reach the U.S. Women’s Amateur championship match after a thrilling semifinal win over Stanford rising sophomore Rachel Heck, the 2021 NCAA individual champion and last season’s Pac-12 Golfer of the Year.
Castle was 2-down with three holes to play in the semifinal before staging a late comeback to force extra holes. The comeback included Heck missing a short putt on the 18th green that would have won her the match.
Instead, on the 19th hole of the match, Castle made a 15-foot birdie putt and defeated Heck to reach Sunday’s championship match. Castle didn’t card a single bogey during the semifinal win and never led the match until she won it.
In winning the U.S. Women’s Amateur, Castle completed a comeback from an otherwise trying summer.
As a sophomore in May, Castle was part of the first Kentucky women’s golf team to reach the NCAA championship finals since 1992, before then playing in the U.S. Women’s Open as an amateur. But a stress fracture in one of Castle’s ribs began to affect her play and she missed the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open.
While Castle was able to play through the injury to win her second straight Carolinas Four-Ball Championship in June, playing with Wake Forest rising junior Rachel Kuehn, the rib injury forced Castle to withdraw from several summer tournaments.
Castle wasn’t even cleared to swing a club until early last week.
Before her semifinal victory over Heck, Castle told The Journal News that her doctors didn’t want her to play in the U.S. Women’s Amateur.
She added that she’s been taking anti-inflammatory medication and Tylenol to help deal with the pain from the rib injury, in addition to icing the injury after each round.
“I was just like, ‘I don’t really see myself giving this opportunity up.’ I qualified so it is what it is,” Castle said. “As soon as this is over, I’ll probably sit out for two or three weeks until the season starts. So, I came here not packing enough clothes, golf balls, neither, but it’s been great… Making it this far without a lot of expectations has been fun.”
In addition to her light packing, Castle’s logistical plans also reflected her limited expectations for the tournament.
According to The Journal News, Castle spent three days staying in a hotel before switching to staying with a friend of a friend in Greenwich, Connecticut, about 20 minutes away from Westchester Country Club.
Castle was initially sleeping on an air mattress before upgrading to a twin bed.
Castle’s return to form is reminiscent of her dominant freshman season at Kentucky, when she set the program’s single-season scoring record in 2019-20 with an average of 71.9 strokes per round.
Castle, along with Frye and Wenzler, will be part of a Kentucky team next season that returns all five players who qualified and played in the 2021 NCAA Championship finals.
By making the championship match, Castle became exempt into the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in North Carolina.
And by winning the U.S. Women’s Amateur, Castle earned a spot on the U.S. Curtis Cup team.
This story was originally published August 8, 2021 at 5:27 PM.
