Liu Secures 101st Women’s Amateur Championship
ESSEX FELLS, N.J. –– Ysabel Liu of New Jersey National Golf Club battled her way to a 2-up victory at the 101st New Jersey Women’s Amateur Championship Wednesday afternoon at Essex Fells Country Club in the finals against Angelina Tolentino.
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The championship match lived up to expectations, with neither player willing to give an inch in a back-and-forth battle that wasn’t decided until the final hole.
Liu came out firing, winning the opening two holes with a birdie and a par to jump ahead 2 up. Tolentino answered immediately, birdieing the 150-yard par-3 3rd hole to trim the deficit to one.
After the pair tied No. 4, Liu restored her 2-up advantage with a par on the fifth and maintained that lead through hole 6 as both players matched with pars.
“Coming in to today, I wasn’t expecting to have a huge lead,” Liu said. “I knew it was going to be tight so that helped my expectations throughout the round. I just took it one shot at a time.”
Tolentino’s comeback began on the 7th, where she rolled in a birdie on the winding par 4 before winning holes 8 and 9 to erase Liu’s advantage and send the match to the back nine tied. The duo tied the 203-yard, downhill par-3 10th before Tolentino claimed her first lead of the day with a birdie on No. 11.
Playing with experience at Essex Fells from high school matches competing for Millburn High School, Liu felt comfortable through gusty conditions at Essex Fells, which played 6,045 yards on Wednesday.
“I like playing in the wind,” Liu said. “The greens are super pure so I could really trust that if I put a good stroke on it and had the right speed and break, the putts would drop. The short par 5s and long par 3s are good for my game, so I had the advantage there.”
Liu refused to let go of the match, responding to Tolentino’s charge with a clutch birdie on the 365-yard par-4 13th to even the match once again. Tolentino, a rising junior at Vanderbilt University, answered right back with a win on hole 14 to regain the 1-up lead that carried through No. 15.
The momentum of the match shifted once more on the hole 16, where Tolentino’s missed par putt allowed Liu to draw even. Liu then seized control with a birdie on the downhill, 336-yard 17th to move 1 up for the first time since the front nine. On the 18th, Liu safely reached the green, making a convincing 15-foot lag putt close enough for Tolentino to concede the hole and allow Liu to secure the championship, 2 up.
“All I can say is that was a really difficult round,” Liu said after the match. “It was a great battle and I’m happy it turned out in my favor.”
Liu will be an incoming freshman at Princeton University in the fall and recently won the AJGA Lake Charles Junior Championship in April.
With the victory, Liu earned an exemption into the 2026 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at The Honors Course in Ooltewah, Tenn from Aug. 4-9.
Liu played in the 2025 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship but missed the cut. This year, she is looking forward to another opportunity to compete against the country’s best female amateur golfers ahead of her freshman season at Princeton University.
“It’s nice to have that redemption opportunity,” Liu remarked. “It’s good to get that experience so I’m excited. Just staying sharp is what I want to do.”
Final Result
Ysabel Liu def. Angelina Tolentino, 2 up
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