Voorhees Bows to Experience in Final

After a week of playing the role of the youthful upstart, knocking off more experienced players at almost every turn, Heidi Voorhees of Studio City was felled Saturday by one of her golfing elders.

Youth finally gave way to experience as Amy Fruhwirth of Phoenix defeated Voorhees, 5 and 4, in the match-play final of the U.S. Women’s Amateur golf championship at Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan.

Fruhwirth was 3-up after the morning round of the final, which was scheduled for 36 holes. Fruhwirth then put away Voorhees, 18, with a birdie binge in the afternoon round.

Fruhwirth, 23, a graduate of Arizona State who played on the school’s NCAA women’s championship team in 1990, birdied holes 8, 9, 10 and 11 in the afternoon round to move 6-up.

“I don’t think anyone could have beaten her today,” Voorhees said. “She played great, she was just awesome. Shoot, she birdied the four hardest holes in a row.”

Voorhees rallied to win at the 12th and 13th, then missed a three-foot putt for par on the 14th that would have halved the hole and prolonged the match.

“I missed the putt--and a lot more,” she said, referring to the title that slipped away. “I played well, but I lost. But I still feel pretty good about it.”

Voorhees, who will turn 19 on Aug. 20, was even par for the day when the match ended.

The victory was no fluke for Fruhwirth, who earned medalist honors in the stroke-play portion of the tournament earlier in the week after recording two rounds of even-par 72.

Voorhees is a 1990 graduate of Notre Dame High and will be a sophomore in the fall at USC. Voorhees’ march through the match-play portion of the tournament included a victory over Emilee Klein of Studio City, a former schoolmate at Notre Dame High.