ARDMORE, Pa. — Top-ranked amateur Rose Zhang set the tone by routing Women’s British Amateur champion Louise Duncan, and Rachel Heck completed an unbeaten week at Merion as the Americans won the Curtis Cup for the third straight time.
The Americans increased the series lead to 31-8-3 since the matches for amateurs against the Great Britain & Ireland team began in 1932.
The Americans had an 8½-3½ lead going into the 10 Sunday singles and needed only two matches to secure the cup.
Zhang, the No. 1 player in the women’s world amateur ranking, took advantage of Duncan’s mistakes early on, winning four of the opening six holes with par. The Scot could never catch up and Zhang won the leadoff match 7 and 5.
Emilia Migliaccio also needed only 13 holes to beat Annabell Fuller in the sixth match. In the games right behind Zhang, Rachel Kuehn and Heck won in 17 holes, and it wasn’t long before the rout was on.
All that was left to decide was the final scores.
The U.S. was coming off a five-point victory last year in Wales after the 2020 matches were postponed one year by the coronavirus pandemic.
GB&I was trying to win on U.S. soil for the first time since 1986. There was a tie in 1994 in Tennessee that allowed GB&I to capture the cup as the defending champions.