Dorothy Delasin

Dorothy Delasin, 15, of Daly City, Calif., won the 48th U.S. Girls' Junior Golf Championship with surprising ease, 5 and 4 over Grace Park, 17, of Phoenix, Ariz., at the Westward Ho Country Club in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Although Park was long and straight off the tee, Delasin had the better of it with her irons and especially with her putts. Park, whose tee shots often approached 300 yards, never had the honor and her only birdie of the round was at the 12th for a halve.

Delasin won the first hole when Park bogeyed, then sank a 20-footer to tie Park on the second hole. On the third, she went 2 up with a 25-foot birdie and she was never threatened thereafter.

If one were to handicap the 1996 Girls' Junior Championship, Delasin would have been a longshot. A year earlier, she had qualified for match play at Longmeadow, Mass., but after winning her first match, she lost, albeit in 19 holes.

But the match was one-sided, with Park never winning a hole. It was over when on 15, down four, Park missed a birdie try of 15 feet.

Delasin's 5 and 4 victory was her most one-sided of the championship. She qualified at 148, four over par, and then defeated Jimin Kang, 2 and 1; Johanna Danielsson, 1 up; Hilary Homeyer, 2 and 1; and Leigh Anne Hardin, 4 and 2, before meeting Park.

The medalist was Reilly Rankin of Hilton Head, S.C., with a 5-under par 139 on the 6,182-yard layout. That was one shot shy of the qualifying record of 138, set by Brandie Burton in 1989, and one shot better than Beth Bauer of Valrico, Fla. However, Rankin lost to Julie Oh of Torrance, Calif., in the second round, and Bauer was eliminated by Park in the quarterfinals.

For the first time, the field for the Girls' Junior was determined by sectional qualifying, with exemptions accorded those reaching the round of 16 in 1994 or 1995. There were 618 entries received, almost triple the previous high, and qualifying was held at 28 sites throughout the country.