Her Best Stroke Is Her Last; Booth Wins Junior Title : Golf: Twenty-foot putt from fringe on the 18th gives her 1-up victory over Peru’s Hayashida in USGA girls’ final.

With the expectations of two generations weighing heavily upon her, Kellee Booth of Coto de Caza won the USGA Girls’ Junior Championship with one long putt.

Booth had just watched Erika Hayashida land a three-iron tee shot one foot left of the flag on the 18th hole at Mesa Verde Country Club. The ball bounced about eight feet beyond the hole.

Booth’s tee shot was just off the green on the short fringe, 20 feet away. If Hayashida made a birdie, she seemed certain to win the hole and continue the match.

But Booth didn’t give her the chance. Her putt broke about a foot from left to right before taking a counterclockwise spin around the back of the cup and settling in.

“When it got to the hole, it looked like it was going to keep going. Then it dropped in,” said Booth, who joined Tiger Woods of Cypress to give Orange County both the girls’ and boys’ USGA junior championships this year. Woods won his third in a row in Portland, Ore., July 31.

With the 1-up victory, Booth also was able to reach a goal that eluded her mother, Jane Bastanchury Booth, an accomplished amateur player in the 1960s and ‘70s. The elder Booth reached the quarterfinals of the tournament once, in 1965. She also finished third in the 1971 U.S. Open as an amateur.

Said Kellee Booth: “When we were taking pictures together, my mom leaned over and said, ‘We’ve finally got a USGA championship in our family.’ ”

Booth had come close before, reaching the semifinals last year and in 1990, but this was her last chance.

That realization was a bit of a burden, Booth said. People reminded her that she “had to win this one.” That Mesa Verde Country Club is about 30 miles from her home and scores of well-wishers from the area were on hand to watch only added to the pressure.

But after qualifying for match play with the second-best score Tuesday, Booth advanced to the final with relative ease, shooting five under par in five matches and only once having to play 18 holes.

Hayashida of Lima, Peru, was also hot, winning three matches after 15 holes, one after 16 holes and one after 17.

Hayashida, 17 and a five-time Peruvian junior champion, knew she was in for more of a match against Booth. “I’m going to play my game,” she said after her semifinal victory Friday. “It’s possible to win.”

That possibility appeared more likely as the match began under gray skies Saturday. Booth hit her drives on the first two holes into the rough and had to scramble to make par on No. 1 and bogey on No. 2.

Hayashida, meanwhile, was down the middle with each shot and had two pars to go 1-up.

But Booth started finding the fairway more regularly and when Hayashida faltered with a bogey on No. 5, the match was square. Booth missed a six-foot par putt on the par-3 seventh, but Hayashida bogeyed Nos. 8 and 9 and Booth led by one.

It was clear from the start that Booth had a substantial length advantage on the 5,934-yard course. Even so, she wasn’t relaxing.

“Erika’s a great player,” Booth said. “So even though she was 10 to 20 yards behind me, I knew she was going to hit a good shot--whether she had a three-iron or a nine-iron in her hand.”

Not always. On the 367-yard No. 8, Booth outdrove Hayashida by about 50 yards. Booth put her seven-iron approach onto the green; Hayashida’s three-wood found a bunker.

Hayashida hung close because of her accuracy; she hit all but three fairways with her drives and was on 12 greens in regulation.

And on the 351-yard No. 14, she pulled even with the first birdie of the match. Hayashida hit one of her longest drives of the round, about 220 yards down the middle, then knocked her iron shot within eight feet of the hole.

Booth got into trouble on the par-4 15th, finding herself in the rough 120 yards from the green behind three tall palms. But her soaring wedge shot landed on the fringe on the back edge of the green, and she got up and down for par. Hayashida missed a 12-foot birdie attempt.

Hayashida narrowly missed a 15-foot birdie putt on the 16th, and Booth saved par with a downhill four-footer, so the match remained even with two holes left.

On the 379-yard, par-4 17th, Hayashida hit her approach shot slightly short of the green, and her chip went 10 feet beyond the hole. She missed the putt coming back, and Booth’s par won the hole.

The gallery, which by this time had swelled to nearly 500, gathered around the 18th hole, playing 159 yards over a lake into a slight breeze.

With Booth’s shot safely near the green, Hayashida stepped forward, needing a spectacularly close shot.

When the ball bounced a foot from the pin, there were more than a few gasps. “I would have had a heart attack (if it went in),” Booth said.

But as it turned out, Booth had the last shot--and her only birdie.

“I was just taking it as being any other putt that I had all day,” Booth said. “In the back of my mind, I was thinking, ‘Oh gosh, I haven’t made one all day.’

“But I was due to make a putt.”

The Final, Hole by Hole

Hole Par Booth Hayashida Match No. 1 5 5 5 Even No. 2 4 5 4 Hayashida, 1-up No. 3 3 3 3 Hayashida, 1-up No. 4 5 5 5 Hayashida, 1-up No. 5 4 4 5 Even No. 6 4 4 4 Even No. 7 3 4 3 Hayashida, 1-up No. 8 4 4 5 Even No. 9 4 4 5 Booth, 1-up No. 10 5 5 5 Booth, 1-up No. 11 5 5 5 Booth, 1-up No. 12 3 3 3 Booth, 1-up No. 13 5 5 5 Booth, 1-up No. 14 4 4 3 Even No. 15 4 4 4 Even No. 16 3 3 3 Even No. 17 4 4 5 Booth, 1-up No. 18 3 2 2 Booth, 1-up