Booth Has the Answer to Pressure : Golf: Coto de Caza resident wins tense semifinal, 2 and 1, to reach final of USGA Girls’ Junior Championship.

Kellee Booth stood about 18 feet from the 14th hole Friday at Mesa Verde Country Club, looking over a putt she needed to make for par. Already forgotten were the mediocre drive and the poor chip that put her in this position.

Her opponent, Kelli Kuehne of McKinney, Tex., had a five-footer for par and by winning the hole, she could draw within one in the semifinals of the USGA Girls’ Junior Championship.

Booth, however, rolled in the putt--and rolled on to a 2-and-1 victory and a spot in the final match at 9 a.m. today.

That was only one of the tense moments in a 3 1/4-hour match, but it showed just how gutsy Booth can be in these situations. Thursday, in her quarterfinal victory over Jody Niemann, Booth made a crucial 15-footer on 17--for a bogey.

“It was like the putt on 17 yesterday,” Booth said Friday. “I knew I had to make it to put the pressure on her.”

Kuehne said the putt was no surprise.

“To tell you the truth, I expected her to make it,” she said. “That’s how good she is.”

Booth, 17, of Coto de Caza, will face Erika Hayashida, 17, of Lima, Peru. Hayashida defeated Anna Umemura of Honolulu, 3 and 2, in the other semifinal.

It will be the first appearance in the Girls’ Junior final for either. Hayashida was the medalist last year but lost in the quarterfinals; Booth was a semifinalist last year and in 1990.

Hayashida chipped in twice for two of her three birdies on the front nineto take control of her match. She stayed in command and closed out Umemura, at 14 the youngest semifinalist, with a par on No. 16.

Booth never had as much breathing room. She made an eight-foot putt for birdie on par-5 first hole. Kuehne quickly got even with a 15-footer for birdie on the par-4 second.

Booth broke away with birdies on the par-5 fourth and par-4 sixth holes. On No. 4, she hit her short-iron approach to within four feet and made the putt. Then she knocked her wedge shot 15 feet beyond the hole on six and made the putt coming back.

That put Booth 2-up and prompted an appreciative murmur from the mostly pro-Booth gallery. “Is she human?” someone asked.

Certainly. But few young players make the game look so easy. From then on, virtually all of Booth’s drives landed in the fairway, anywhere from 220 to 240 yards off the tee. Birdie attempts missed narrowly.

Must-sink putts weren’t missed.

Booth’s only real slip-up was on the par-5 11th. She hit a wedge shot from 108 yards to within four feet but pushed her birdie putt past the hole, missing a chance to go 3-up.

Kuehne, 16, was playing just as strongly. After Booth’s birdie on No. 6, the two matched pars on the next 10 holes. But Kuehne was running out of holes, and her birdie putts, although agonizingly close, weren’t dropping.

When Kuehne’s 18-foot downhill birdie attempt on No. 16 missed by inches, she was faced with needing to win the last two holes to tie.

But Kuehne, whose mother was giving her father, at work in Dallas, updates every few holes by cellular telephone, got into trouble on 17. She hit her drive into the right rough, then hit a palm tree with her second shot. She recovered by reaching the green on her third shot, but could only match Booth’s bogey by two-putting from 20 feet.

With the victory, Booth moved a step closer to an elusive goal. She has won 14 junior events in the last two years but has never won a match-play tournament. Last month, she lost in the match-play final of the Western Women’s Golf Assn. junior tournament in Granger, Ind., but she might be on the verge of conquering her aversion to the format.

“I just think I’m kind of learning to live with my fears of match play and play as if I’m in a stroke-play tournament,” she said.