PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Ina Kimshard defeated Hanley Lengthy within the longest championship match in U.S. Girls’s Mid-Beginner historical past on the Dunes Course at Monterey Peninsula Nation Membership on Thursday with an 18-foot birdie putt on the prolonged fifth gap.
Kim Schade, 42, from Jupiter, Florida, additionally gained in 2019. She is the fourth-oldest winner within the occasion’s historical past and the primary to win twice since Julia Potter Bob in 2016. The match is open to gamers over the age of 25 and with a handicap index not exceeding 9.4.
“Truthfully, I am overwhelmed,” Kim Schade stated. “I completely love this place and my husband and I received married in Carmel. It is such a particular place on the golf course, my household is right here, my husband’s birthday is within the week, and it is our second wedding ceremony. I do not even really feel like there are sufficient phrases to precise all of the feelings I am feeling.”
Lengthy, a 28-year-old from Clarksville, Tenn., needed to hit his third shot from the cart path on the par-4 seventeenth gap when Kim Schard’s strategy missed the inexperienced, however he squared it for par. Each gamers made bogey on the par-4 18th gap, forcing an additional gap. They made par on the primary 4 holes of the playoff, with Lengthy scoring an 18-foot gap on the second additional gap.
“It was an absolute battle all day there,” Lengthy stated. “Truthfully, I’m so happy with my grit and dedication for holding my head excessive and holding it excessive all day lengthy and by no means giving up.”
Each finalists earned spots within the 2026 U.S. Girls’s Open and 2026 U.S. Girls’s Beginner at Riviera Nation Membership, with Kim Schard additionally competing within the 2027 U.S. Girls’s Beginner.
The earlier longest match in match historical past was Robin Weiss’ 22-hole victory over Paige Marsh Lee in 1989.
