Golf: Peruvian Ximena Benites leads the Women’s Amateur Latin America

The Peruvian Ximena Benites is the only leader after the first round of the Women’s Amateur Latin America organized by The R&A and the ANNIKA Foundation that takes place in Pilar Golf, Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Trujillo player signed a card of 70 strokes (-2) and towards the end of the afternoon she displaced a group of 6 competitors who were waiting at the club house with 71 strokes (-1).

“I kept my cool despite the double bogey on the par 3 of the 6th hole, I tried to stay in the present and make birdies because there were a lot of holes to go. My game above the green worked well and that was the key”said Benites, who signed with the University of Iowa to begin his studies next year. “Nobody in my family plays golf, in fact, they didn’t know what the sport was about until I started playing it at the age of 8”added the winner of several local championships in her country, second in the New Jersey Junior PGA Championship and fifth in the Optimist Junior International, which allowed her to rise to 770th place in the WAGR.

In back of Beniteswith a single blow, they march Ana Isabel Gonzalez Cantú (Mexico), Daniela Ballesteros (Peru), Lauren Daiana Olivares Leon (Mexico), Vanessa Gilly (Venezuela), Maria Morales Zubizarreta (Paraguay) and Valentina Rossi (Argentina), who finished 3rd in 2021.

Who had an irregular start to the championship was one of the favorites and best placed in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), María José Marín. The Colombian signed 73 hits (+1) and was ranked 12th, three behind the lead.

On a day in which the wind was the exclusive protagonist, only seven players out of the 60 that make up the championship field managed to lower par on the complicated Pilar Golf course. In 2021, Valery Plata, champion of the first edition, finished with 276 shots (-12) in a week in which only two players broke the court pair: the winner and Majo Marín.