Girls, 12, to meet in Amateur

CARMEL, Ind. -- In the first 106 years of the U.S. Women’s Amateur golf championship, no preteen had reached match play. Now there are two and they will face each other today.

Pearl Jin of San Gabriel and Alexis Thompson of Coral Springs, Fla., ousted older opponents Wednesday to set up their second-round showdown at the Crooked Stick Golf Club.

“I’m really excited. I heard that she’s a good player,” said Jin, who turned 12 in June, four months after Thompson.

“It feels really good to be the youngest one. It’s a little bit nervous,” she said. “I just try to concentrate and be calm.”

Jin, who took up golf at 8 -- after earning a black belt in taekwondo -- beat 20-year-old Ashley Tait of Littleton, Colo., 2 and 1 in the first round; Thompson got by 17-year-old Evan Jensen of Belleair, Fla., 3 and 2.

“I was a little nervous when it all started, but I’ve gotten used to it,” Thompson said of her full schedule this summer. “In these golf tournaments, I just go out there and play my game and don’t worry about anything else and hope for the best.”