Grace Summerhays will extend her family’s legacy in the State Amateur by playing in next month’s tournament in a field that includes her older brother, the defending champion.
Summerhays, 14, became the youngest female golfer ever to advance to the State Am by shooting a 1-over-par 73 and tying for 15th place Wednesday in a qualifying event at Glen Eagle Golf Course in Syracuse.
Last June, Preston Summerhays, now 16, became the youngest winner in State Am history. The family of former PGA Tour player Boyd Summerhays lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., and spends the summers in Davis County.
The 2019 State Am is scheduled July 8-13 at Soldier Hollow Golf Course in Midway.
Grace Summerhays is the fourth female golfer to qualify for the State Am and the third in three years, following Annie Thurman Young (2005), Naomi Soifua (2017) and Carly Dehlin-Hirsch (2018). The diversity of the field is partly explained by the recent expansion to 288 players and by women becoming aware that the historic tournament is not limited to men. Prior to Soifua’s participation, Dehlin-Hirsch said she didn’t know women could enter the event.
“This has been one of my goals for a while, and it feels so amazing and is so special to me,” Summerhays said in a Utah Golf Association news release.
Her father qualified for the 1992 State Am at age 12 and remains the youngest golfer to do so. Her uncle, Daniel Summerhays, won the tournament in 2000 and ’01. And her grandfather, Lynn Summerhays, lost to his brother Bruce (the eventual champion) in the 1966 semifinals.
