Rodriguez eliminated in US Women’s Amateurs match play

Filipina amateur Cyna Rodriguez scored a hard-earned one-up victory over Australian Leanne Bowditch but lost out to Alexis Thompson of Florida, two-down, that ended her campaign in the third round of match play in the 109th U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship in St. Louis, Missouri. Ranged against Bowditch in the round of 32, Rodriguez trailed twice in the early goings but drew level on No. 6, went 1-up on No. 12 five times, the last on No. 16 but double-bogeyed the par-3 17th, enabling the Aussie to tie the match. But Rodriguez salvaged a par on the 18th which Bowditch bogeyed to clinch the win. Rodriguez, the 45th seed after the elimination phase, played catch up in the round of 16 at the par-71 layout of Old Warson Country Club, falling by as many as five holes after 10 holes on back-to-back bogeys. The ICTSI-backed Rodriguez got off to a bad start with a bogey to go one-down before leveling the score with a birdie on the fourth hole. She lost another point on the fifth but made it all-square on No. 7. Both players were tied from the sixth up to the ninth but Rodriguez grabbed the lead with a par on No. 10 then watched Bowditch bungle a scrambling par for a bogey. Rodriguez bounced back with two pars and two birdies in four of the next five holes to move within one with three holes left. A birdie on the par-five 16th, however, gave Thompson, ranked lower than Rodriguez at joint 54th, another two-hole cushion as the Filipina bet missed her bid from inside six feet before the two players parred the next. – Adrian Flores, GMANews.TV