Years from now, when Ali Mulhall and Grace Summerhays are making their marks in women’s professional golf, followers of local Utah golf are going to talk about the duo’s epic semifinal match in the 118th Utah Women’s State Amateur.
It could be like the championship match of the 2006 Utah Men’s State Amateur, when future PGA Tour players Tony Finau and Daniel Summerhays squared off at Soldier Hollow, with Finau prevailing.
The record will show that Mulhall won Friday’s meeting with a birdie on the first playoff hole, the par-5 No. 1 hole at TalonsCove Golf Club in Saratoga Springs, Utah, but that’s only part of the story.
Mulhall, who just turned 19, will meet 33-year-old Kelsey Chugg in Saturday’s 18-hole championship match after the five-time champion Chugg advanced with a 4 and 3 win over Samoan teenager Faith Vui.
“The whole week has been incredible and I am just trying to keep it going,” said Mulhall, who has starred in Utah junior golf tournaments for years but has never played in the Women’s Am until this year.
She shot a 7-under 65 in stroke-play qualifying on Wednesday to tie for medalist honors with Utah Tech’s Jenna Anderson, a transfer from Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Her strategy against Chugg, who last won the title in 2022 and is chasing Bev Nelson’s record of eight State Am titles, is “to just stay patient and then just be aggressive on the par-5s and take advantage of my length.”
Mulhall, daughter of a PGA professional, recently moved to St. George from Henderson, Nevada, to become a “Black Desert athlete” and work for the resort course in St. George that will host a PGA Tour event this fall.
Both Mulhall and Summerhays, daughter of former PGA Tour player Boyd Summerhays, who was her caddy on Friday, plowed through the field en route to the semifinal showdown.
Friday morning, Summerhays downed Crimson Cliffs High star Kate Walker 7 and 6, while Mulhall rolled past former UVU golfer Leighton Shosted 4 and 3.
Shosted was at Grand Canyon last year and is transferring to Tennessee this season.
The Summerhays-Mulhall match was tied through 15 holes and seemed destined to go beyond the wire, which it did. However, Summerhays won the short, 280-yard par-4 16th hole when Mulhall made a bogey from the bunker in front of the green.
“I tried to get too cute with the bunker shot and ended up chunking it, then I lost the hole,” said Mulhall, who doesn’t mince words.
On the par-3 17th hole, Summerhays returned the favor, making a bogey while Mulhall got up and down from a bunker behind the green.
“I knew I had to get it up and down no matter what,” Mulhall said. “Ended up being a good lie (in the bunker). Made sure just to keep it on that top shelf. It ended up pretty good, and I made the (par) putt.”
Summerhays forced the extra hole with a clutch par putt of about 5 feet on No. 18.
Summerhays was seemingly in better shape off the tee on the first playoff hole, smack dab in the middle of the fairway. Mulhall’s tee shot popped out of a fairway bunker, a pretty hefty break.
“I was lucky that I got a good lie with a good stance,” she said.
Mulhall’s 5-wood missed the green to the left, while Summerhays’ shot from the fairway was long and her pitch back went 15 feet past the hole.
After Summerhays tap-in for par was conceded, Mulhall rolled in her birdie putt for the win.
“It was about 7 feet. I played it about two balls out. I didn’t know if it was going to go in or not. It was a little high, but better high side than low side, and then it lipped in,” she said.
Saturday’s championship match will begin at 8 a.m.