At the 2008 US Women’s Open, 19-year-old South Korean prodigy Inbee Park became the competition’s youngest-ever champion after winning the first of her seven major titles.
It would be another six years or more before Bella Simes would be born. She tried to meet the primary requirements on Tuesday.
The Brazilian, who will participate in the tournament for the first time in its 78-year history in July at California’s renowned Pebble Beach course, is the youngest player to ever seek qualification. He is nine years old.At The Club at Mediterra in Naples, Florida, Simes made her opening shot of her qualifying group.
A flawless swing method that was submitted on the USGA’s Twitter account received a lot of praise.But given Simes’ already impressive resume, that shouldn’t be a surprise. She won the US Kids Golf World title for the under-seven age group in 2020, defended it the next year, and then won it again in the eight-year-old division in 2022.
It’s a youth competition with a history: Lexi Thompson, the 2014 Chevron Championship winner and world No. 7, won two championships before rising to the top of the game.When Thompson qualified for the 2007 US Women’s Open at the age of 12, she set a record for being the youngest golfer to do so.Simes has a few more chances to take that title, but he will have to wait at least another year after placing tied-59th out of 67 players. The Brazilian player had a score of 23 over par, whereas Lindy Duncan and Brooke Matthews had automatic qualifying rounds of 10-under and 8-under, respectively.
In comparison to the previous record of 1,874 set in 2017, when Minjee Lee went on to win at Pine Needles, the USGA announced a record 2,107 entries for the event in July. These applicants came from 62 nations and 47 US states.To try qualification, players must either be professionals or have a handicap index of 2.4 or less. The previous 10 champions and the top 75 players in the world rankings are among the exempted parties who are given an automatic invitation.
The USGA reports that Bethesda, Maryland professional Kimberly Williams, 60, was the oldest person to try to qualify this year.
