Breaking Par Gives, Ambrose, Wu the Leads in Junior Section Championship at Alliance

Alliance, Ohio: You can break bread, break the bank or break loose but on Monday at hilly Alliance Country Club it was all about breaking par.

That’s what a pair of 16-year-olds – Canfield’s Mick Ambrose a and Solon’s Serena Wu – accomplished and why they have their respective leads at the half-way point of the NOPGA’s Junior Section Championship.

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Ambrose and Wu were the only players in the field of 144 to break pair as each shot one-under 69 with identical highlights of two birdies and one bogey each. Both had nines of 35-34.

Ambrose, who will be a junior at Canfield High in the fall, will take a one-shot over Hudson’s Sam Fauver (37-33=70) and two-shot lead over Alliance’s Garett Dillon (37-34=71) and Akron’s Ryan Dinan (37-34=71).

Wu, a junior at Solon High, has a four-shot cushion over North Canton’s Ava Kemp (36-37=73) and a five-shot advantage over Westlake’s Cara Heisterkamp (39-35=74).

The top two boys and girls will advance to the national PGA Junior Championship at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda. Md. during the last week in July and first week in August. While competition in the Section event is held in varying age groups from 11 to 18, only the overall best scores will advance to the national tournament, whether the winners are 18 or 11.

The boys event is a much tighter race as there are six players within three shots of Ambrose’s lead while the girls event appears to be a three-player joust between Wu, Kemp and Heisterkamp, who will attend Indiana University in the fall.

The next closest players are Akron’s Annelise Stencel (38-39-=77) at seven-over and Fairview Park’s Kayla Knaze (42-36=78) and Broadview Heights’ Gianna Reginelli (39-39=78), who are tied at 8-over.

Ambrose, who won a NOPGA stroke play event with a round of 70 at Fairlawn Country earlier this month, got off to a nice start when he birdied the first hole by making a 12-foot putt following a pitching wedge from 104 yards.

“That was nice,” he said. “The putt was straight up the hill.”

He bogeyed the 447-yard fifth hole but got back under par when he rolled in a 25-foot putt for birdie on the par-5 12th hole. He closed with six straight pars.

“The summer’s been kind of up-and-down,” said of his best competitive round of the summer. “I struggled earlier but I played well at Fairlawn and in an event at Ellsworth Meadows.”

His birdie on the 510-yard 12th was a bit of an adventure.

He hit his drive into the trees but found an opening under the trees and a wedge shot from 85 yards left him a challenging putt that hit the hole perfectly.

“I pounded it, too,” he said. “If it would have missed the hole it probably would have gone eight feet by.”

A member of Canfield’s district-qualifying team, Ambrose is in his second season of competing in NOPGA events. He said his game plan for the final round will be similar to his first.

“I’m just going to go out and try to be as consistent as I was today,” he said. “It was as easy as I could have made it. Pretty stress-free.”

Wu, the NOPGA Junior Player-of-the-Year for those in the 11-15 age group in 2023, bogeyed the third hole but posted two birdies over her final 15 holes, highlighted by a hole-out from the rough on the par-3 eighth.

It should come as no surprise.

“I have been chipping the ball very well most of the year,” she said. “It is something I work on a lot, chipping and putting.

Her putting prowess was on display on the 339-yard 11th, where she made her second birdie to get to one-under. She rolled in an uphill, right-to-left 25-footer and finished with seven straight pars.

The final round begins Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. with the boys going first. The leaders – Ambrose, Fauver and Dillon – are set to go off at 12:50.

The girls will follow 10 minutes later with Wu, Kemp and Heisterkamp scheduled for 3:10.

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