Two Lexington County teens to compete in national golf championship

Lexington, SC (Paul Kirby) – Starting this coming Saturday, Isabella Rawl, 15, and Karlee Vardas, 16, of Lexington will be competing in the 5th U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship. This prestigious golf championship will be held at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville, Fla. from Saturday, April 27 through May 1. It will begin with a field of 64 sides equaling 128 individuals, who are competing for a chance to win one of the most prestigious honors in golf, a United States Golf Association (USGA) title. The young ladies from Lexington will be competing with other golfers that are often older from all over the United States and the world!

This will be the first USGA championship for both competitors. Vardas won the 2018 Players Championship at Hartsville Country Club, which featured the top 30 girls’ golfers in South Carolina. In that championship, she shot the third-lowest score in the event’s 20-year history. Rawl committed to Clemson at age 14 making her the youngest female golfer to ever verbally commit to the school. She won back-to-back Lady BlueJacket Invitational titles in 2016-17, placed second in the 2017 State Junior, and was named to the Carolina's Golf Association 15 and Under list in 2017.

A starting field of 64 sides (128 golfers) will compete in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship. Following 18-hole rounds of stroke play on April 27 and 28, the field will be cut to the low 32 sides for match play. Five 18-hole rounds of match play will determine the champion.

The inaugural U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship was played in 2015 on the Pacific Dunes Course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore. With the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, which also debuted in 2015, the championships were the first annual additions to the USGA competitive schedule since the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur began in 1987.