Pueblo – Mina Harigae’s golf resume is impressive, especially when you compare it to Louisville’s Chelsey Collins’.
A native of Monterey, Calif., Harigae has won the past four California Women’s Amateur championships and the Heather Farr Classic, and this week’s U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links tournament at Walking Stick Golf Course is her 13th USGA championship event.
Oh, yeah. She’s only 16 years old.
After sharing medalist honors with San Diego’s Hannah Jun over the first two days of stroke play, Harigae earned the top seed in match play against 64th-seeded Collins, who seemed just happy to still be playing in her first USGA event.
Experience won out, with Harigae finishing off Collins 2 and 1 to advance to the second round, where she will face Mari Chun of Hawaii today at 7:30 a.m.
“I’ve seen medalists go down in the first round many times,” Harigae said, “and I didn’t want to do that.”
Neither player seemed to want to take control of the match early, and Collins kept herself in it with her putter. The recent graduate of Monarch High School, and a freshman- to-be at the University of Oklahoma, Collins converted lengthy par-saving putts on Nos. 4, 5, 7 and 8.
Finally, on the the short par-4 No. 9, Collins took the first lead of the match after Harigae three-putted from 18 feet.
“I made the turn at 1-up, and that was exciting,” said Collins, who had her father, Larry, the director of golf at the Omni Interlocken, on the bag. “I basically gave her 10 and 11 with stupid bogeys.”
Collins, who survived a three- person playoff early Thursday morning just to make match play, evened the match again at No. 13, but watched as Harigae rolled in her first big birdie of the day on No. 15 to take the lead for good.
“I thinked she tried to close me out a little sooner, but I hung in there a little harder,” Collins said. “I got the feeling she was expecting a few more putts to fall and they just didn’t. She had a few letdowns, and I was able to garner a little momentum off that.
“The overall experience was awesome. I will take a lot from this.”
Four of the eight Coloradans in the event moved through to match play, including former University of Denver player Kelly Schaub, who at age 26 was the oldest player remaining in the field.
“That was the toughest match ever,” said Schaub, who rolled in 40-footers at Nos. 1, 10 and 17. “I just felt like I had a lot more experience.”
Schaub dispatched Jenny Shin, 13, of Torrance, Calif., 2 and 1 and will play Hawaii’s Kimberly Kim today.
Former Heritage High School standout Ashley Anast bowed out to Selanee Henderson of Newport Beach, Calif., 2-up, and two-time high school state champion Kelly Jacques of Skyline in Longmont lost to 4 and 2 to Stephanie Kono of Honolulu.
Jon E. Yunt can be reached at 303-820-5446 or jyunt@denverpost.com.
