Amy Lee Defends Her B.C. Junior Girls Championship In Record-Setting Fashion
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
KELOWNA (July 05, 2024) — Along with her 14 clubs, Amy Lee has four letters that accompany her nearly every time she tees it up. WAAC is a South Korean golf apparel brand and that acronym stands for Win At All Costs.
It has become something of a golfing mantra for the 16-year-old Langley resident, who seems to be winning every time she plays. Lee didn’t just successfully defend her B.C. Junior Girls Championship, she lapped her competition at Gallagher’s Canyon Golf & Country Club. Lee won by 18 shots. That’s right, 18 shots.
“I’m very competitive,” Lee said with a chuckle after her final round. “I am really, really competitive. No matter how others are playing, if I don’t meet my expectations, I really try to focus more. I think this WAAC statement really just describes me. And my dad used to say that the face on the logo looked like me, which I really disagree with.”
Lee’s performance was record-setting. No one has won this tournament by this kind of margin. Lee had even lost track of her margin of victory after she had signed her scorecard. “What did I win by, 15?” she said. Told that it was 18, the Walnut Grove secondary student replied, “I won by 18? Wow. I’m happy.” See, there’s that killer instinct.
The only disappointment for Lee was that she wasn’t able to beat the boys. After her second round, Lee revealed that she was aiming to better the score of the boys’ winner at Gallagher’s. Her 72-hole total of seven-under par was four shots shy of matching boys’ winner Austin Krahn. “I was just trying to keep up with the boys,” Lee said. “At one point, I was just one back and I thought I had a chance.”
Lee fired rounds of 71, 70, 73 and 71 at Gallagher’s, which played as a par 73 for the girls and a par 72 for the boys. Lee finished her final round with an exclamation mark of sorts when she stuck a wedge from 104 yards one foot from the hole on the 18th green for a tap-in birdie. “I really needed that birdie,” she said. “I was like, I just need one more birdie, come on. I was really locked in. I was really trying to make that birdie.”
The real race in the final round was for second place. Ha Young Chang of Surrey finished runner-up at 11-over par. Chelsea Truong of Victoria was third at 13-over. Lee, Chang and Truong will represent British Columbia in the inter-provincial team competition at the Canadian Junior Girls Championship, which goes July 22-25 at Marine Drive Golf Club in Vancouver.
Lee acknowledged that the final round had a different feel, given that she started it with a 12-shot lead. “I know they are great players,” she said of Chang and Truong. “I just don’t think it was their week.”
Truong, the 2023 B.C. Women’s Amateur champion, said she was mightily impressed with Lee’s performance at Gallagher’s. “She’s just an incredible player,” Truong said. “It’s really fun to watch and be a part of. She’s just an awesome person, too. I really enjoy playing with her and we have a lot of fun.”
Lee has now won two British Columbia Golf championships in the last month. She captured the B.C. Women’s Amateur in mid-June at Balfour Golf Course. Having just finished Grade 10, U.S. schools are now allowed to reach out to Lee and her family. They have been struck by an avalanche of sorts and her Gallagher’s performance will only intensify interest in her.
“I don’t think I can count, there’s so many,” she said, when asked how many schools had contacted her. “We have had phone calls, done Zoom, Face Time and exchanged messages with schools. But until Aug. 1 we are not allowed to talk face to face. I have to wait a little longer.
“I am really looking for a school that matches me. I will spend four years there so I want to make sure it’s my second home. I have a top-five list in my head, but I can’t name them.”
CHIP SHOTS: Langley’s Lois Park aced the 144-yard par 3 eighth hole in the final round with a seven-iron. “When I hit it I thought it was going to be a little bit long, but then I heard my parents cheering,” Park said. “I didn’t see it go in but my mom started screaming, so I was like, oh, I must have made a hole-in-one.” It was Park’s first hole-in-one.
Click HERE for complete final scoring.