Piccio lone RP bet in North, South Amateur Championship

Mia Piccio became the lone Philippine bet in the 108th Women's North and South Amateur Championship after three of her teammates were shown the exit door in the matchplay event at Pinehurst’s No. 2 course in North Carolina.

Piccio, who finished 25th in the two-day stroke-play qualifier, hacked out a hard-earned 2 and 1 victory against New Yorker Suzie Lee. After three regulation pars, Piccio roared to a three-hole advantage with a string of pars from the fourth to sixth while Lee limped with two double bogeys on Nos. 4 and 5 and bogey on the next. The 40th-seed Lee climbed back with a birdie on the seventh and a par on the ninth to slash Piccio's lead to one. At the 10th, Piccio increased her gap to two with a par as against Lee's bogey. However, a persistent Lee rallied on the 11th and 12th to put the duel on all-square. But that proved to be her last stand after Piccio drilled in back-to-back birdies on Nos. 13 and 14 and never looked back. “I knew Lee would catch up at some point. When we were all-square, I knew I had to push myself harder," said Piccio, who will next face Joy Kim. The greens, Piccio and coach Carmelette Villaroman noticed, were so soft because of the intermittent rains and full of spike marks which made it tougher to read. That's probably why Piccio's teammates Cyna Rodriguez, Bambee Dela Paz and Chihiro Ikeda all lost their important matches in the round of 64. Rodriguez bowed to Marisa Steen, 4 and 2, while Dela Paz suffered a 3 and 1 setback at to Courtney Gunter. Ikeda, one of the fancied players in the field, was booted out by Marina Alex, 5 and 4. – JVP, Adrian Flores, GMANews.TV