Gaston Takes Second State Amateur Golf Title in Row

Andrea Gaston of Chatsworth defeated Julie Christopher of Saratoga, 3 and 2, to win her second consecutive title in the Women’s State Amateur golf championships Sunday at the Golf Club at Quail Lodge in Carmel.

Gaston, a member of the Porter Valley Country Club, is the fourth player to win consecutive titles and the first since Patty Sheehan in 1977-78.

Shelly Hamlin (1967-70) and Barbara Handley (1971-72) also won consecutive championships.

“I feel a certain sense of pride having accomplished that,” Gaston said. “I reflected on some of the players I had defeated this week on the drive home and I felt like I’d played well.”

Playing in the rain for the first six holes, Gaston won the second and third holes before Christopher won the seventh.

Gaston, 36, won the ninth to go up two, but Christopher cut her lead in half by winning the 11th.

Gaston birdied the 509-yard, par-5 15th to go up by two and she clinched the title with a conservative bogey on the 16th--two-putting from eight feet--after Christopher put her tee shot in the lake.

Christopher, 23, had finished second to Wendy Kaupp in the 1992 championships.