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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted at 9:03 p.m., Sunday, August 13, 2006

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Hawai'i's Kimberly Kim, 14, rallied to defeat Germany's Katharina Schallenberg, 1-up, to become the youngest champion of the U.S. Women's Amateur Championship Sunday at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in North Plains, Ore.

Kim, who moved from Hilo to Mesa, Ariz., earlier this year, is the second Hawai'i golfer to win a United States Golf Association championship this summer. Casey Watabu won the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship last month.

Kim got off to a rough start on Sunday. and was 5 down after 15 holes. But she won the last three holes of the morning 18 to trail by two holes at the turn.

In the afternoon round, Kim cut Schallenberg's lead to 1 up on the 25th hole and tied it on the next hole (the par-4 8th), winning with a birdie.

Kim took her first lead on the 30th hole, winning the par-3 12th with a birdie. She went 2 up with a par on the next hole.

Schallenberg closed to 1 down, winning the 32nd hole. The golfers halved the final four holes.

Kim finished 20th in two rounds of stroke play and won six matches en route to the championship.

Kim was runner-up in to Tiffany Joh of San Diego in the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links, another United States Golf Association championship, in June. She lost to Joh in the match play final, 6 and 5.

The youngest to win the U.S. Women's Amateur previously was Laura Baugh, who was 16 years, 2 months, 21 days when she won in 1971.

Kim turns 15 on Wednesday.