There are good fields in amateur golf and there are great fields. And then there’s the field at the 2025 Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship. At the risk of tripping off your hyperbole detector, let’s provide the numbers to explain just what we’re talking about.
A total of 72 players will compete in the sixth edition of the event. Included in those 72 are all but one of top 50 golferrs in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. The lone missing player is Vanessa Borovilos of Canada, ranked No. 42.
After reaching out to the USGA’s expert on the WAGR, it’s believed this will be the first tournament, men’s or women’s, that has ever had this many of the top 50 playing simultaneously. For comparison, the most top-30 players to have competed in the U.S. Women’s Amateur was 20 back in 2017. And, further, the Nos. 51 and 52 are in the ANWA field, too. Impressive? You bet. Maybe even a bit ridiculous.
Suffice it to say, the golfer who emerges as the winner next Saturday will have taken down arguably the best field ever assembled for a women’s amateur event. So who has the best shot at being that winner? We’ve compiled a list of the 15 players we have our eyes on to claim the crown, listed here in the order of WAGR ranking.
Lottie Woad
Age: 21 | Country: England World Amateur Golf Ranking: 1 Previous ANWA appearances: 13th (2023), Win (2024)
Chloe Knott
Notable: With three birdies on her final four holes, Woad claimed victory at Augusta National a year ago—and with it a new level of notoriety. The attention has taken some getting used to, admits the Florida State junior, but her game continues to show the victory was no fluke. She followed up with a T-23 at the Chevron Championship last April and a T-10 showing at the AIG Women’s Open, en route to winning the 2024 Mark H. McCormack Medal for top female amateur. During the 2024-25 college season, Woad has finished no worse than third in all eight starts, with a win and a 70.32 stroke average. She’s also recently coming off another career milestone: her first hole-in-one.
Jasmine Koo
Age: 19 | Country: U.S. World Amateur Golf Ranking: 2 Previous ANWA appearances: 4th (2024)
Notable: The freshman at USC is having a standout college campaign for the Trojans, winning four times in the 2024-25 season. After finishing fourth at last year’s ANWA (with eagles on both the par-5 eighth and 15th holes), Koo finished T-13 (low amateur) at the LPGA’s first major of 2024, the Chevron Championship. She was also a member of the 2024 U.S. Curtis Cup team.
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Age: 19 | Country: Malaysia World Amateur Golf Ranking: 3 Previous ANWA appearances: T-8 (2024)
Notable: Lottie Woad might be the defending ANWA champion, but she doesn’t have the low scoring average on the Florida State women’s golf team this season. That belongs to Ting, a junior, who has played in six events in the 2024-25 season and has five wins—including a 10-shot triumph in her last start—to go with a 68.5 stroke average. Ting has a connection to Augusta beyond her T-8 in last year’s ANWA; she played for Augusta University as a freshman in 2023, helping lead the Jaguars to their first NCAA Championship berth, before transferring to FSU.
Rianne Malixi 
Kathryn Riley
Age: 17 | Country: The Philippines World Amateur Golf Ranking: 4 Previous ANWA appearances: MC (2024)
Notable: While still in high school in 2024, Malixi won both the U.S. Girls’ Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur titles, only the second player in USGA history to claim both in the same calendar year. She also had top-five finishes in the European Ladies’ Amateur, the Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific and the Korea Women’s Open. She’s headed to Duke in the fall.
Maria Jose Marin
Age: 18 | Country: Colombia World Amateur Golf Ranking: 6 Previous ANWA appearances: T-14 (2023), T-30 (2024)
Notable: Marin successfully defended her South American Women’s Amateur title in January and has two wins so far during her sophomore year at Arkansas. A year ago, she was a semifinalist in the U.S. Women’s Amateur and finished T-17 in the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, her first start in an LPGA Tour event.
Paula Martin Sampedro
Age: 19 | Country: Spain World Amateur Golf Ranking: 10 Previous ANWA appearances: T-24 (2024)
Notable: She’s one of eight(!) former or current Stanford players competing at this year’s ANWA, bolstered by a start in last year’s championship. During her freshman year in 2023-24, she had nine top-seven finishes while helping the Cardinal claim the NCAA team championship. This season, she has won her first two individual college titles, most recently at the Juli Inkster Invitational with a final-round closing six-under 66.
Megha Ganne 
Orlando Ramirez
Age: 21 | Country: U.S. World Amateur Golf Ranking: 12 Previous ANWA appearances: MC (2021), MC (2022), T-9 (2023), T-20 (2024)
Notable: It’s scary to think it’s already nearly been four years since Ganne, then a high schooler, was contending for the U.S. Women’s Open title at Olympic Club. Since then, the two-time U.S. Curtis Cup team member has moved on to Stanford, where the junior was part of the Cardinal lineup that won the NCAA team title in 2024. No player in this year’s ANWA field has made more starts in the event than Ganne—this is her fifth appearance to go with a record four appearances in the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals at Augusta.
Asterisk Talley
Age: 16 | Country: U.S. World Amateur Golf Ranking: 14 Previous ANWA appearances: T-8 (2024)
Notable: Talley was the youngest player in the ANWA field a year ago, but her performance wouldn’t have shown it. A T-8 finish started an impressive season that included her teaming with Sarah Lim to win the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball, then finishing runner-up to Rianne Malixi in both the U.S. Girls’ Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur. She also tied for low amateur at the U.S. Women’s Open, and in January she won the AJGA’s Annika Invitational.
Meja Ortengren
Age: 20 | Country: Sweden World Amateur Golf Ranking: 16 Previous ANWA appearances: T-12 (2022), MC (2023), MC (2024)
Notable: The Swede has yet to finish worse than fifth in a stroke-play event during her freshman season at Stanford, including an eight-stroke win at the San Diego State Classic in February; even Rose Zhang didn’t have a win that big as a first-year player with the Cardinal. Ortengren has the team’s low scoring average at Stanford (69.67), with the Cardinal having won every stroke-play event it’s played in the 2024-25 season.
Anna Davis 
Kelly Gavin
Age: 19 | Country: U.S. World Amateur Golf Ranking: 17 Previous ANWA appearances: Win (2022), MC (2023), MC (2024)
Notable: Davis was the youngest winner in ANWA history when she claimed the title at age 16 in 2022. She’s now a sophomore at Auburn, with four top-three finishes in the 2024-25 season, including a win at the Illini Invitational at Medinah last fall. Since 2023, Davis has played for the U.S. in the Junior Solheim Cup, Junior Ryder Cup, Women’s World Amateur Team Championship, Pan American Games, Arnold Palmer Cup and the Curtis Cup.
Gianna Clemente
Age: 17 | Country: U.S. World Amateur Golf Ranking: 22 Previous ANWA appearances: T-14 (2023), T-5 (2024)
Notable: She might still be a junior in high school, but the 2024 AJGA girls’ player of the year has loads of experience at Augusta National. She was a finalist in the Drive, Chip and Putt in 2017, then had a T-14 as the youngest competitor in the 2023 ANWA. Last year, she played in the final pairing along with eventual champion Lottie Woad before finishing T-5. She’s also already a USGA champion, winning the 2023 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship.
Rachel Heck 
Orlando Ramirez
Age: 23 | Country: U.S. World Amateur Golf Ranking: 25 Previous ANWA appearances: T-3 (2021), T-27 (2022), MC (2024)
Notable: A 2024 Stanford grad who won both the NCAA individual and team title (twice) in her career, Heck chose to pass on pro golf, eventually taking a job as an analyst at KKR. Meanwhile, the Tennessee native also joined the U.S. Air Force Reserve, where she holds the rank of second lieutenant and recently finished up Defense Information School. Heck hasn’t played in competition since last May’s NCAA Championship, but remained in the top 50 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.
Carolina Lopez-Chacarra
Age: 21 | Country: Spain World Amateur Golf Ranking: 27 Previous ANWA appearances: MC (2021), MC (2022), MC (2023), MC (2024)
Notable: Wake Forest golfers have had success in the ANWA—Jennifer Kupcho winning the inaugural title in 2019 and Emilia Migliaccio getting into a playoff in 2021. Perhaps Lopez-Chacarra, a Demon Deacons senior with five top-fives in eight starts this college season, is poised to keep the run going. She certainly has her own experience at the ANWA, having played the last four years but also having yet to make the cut in the event. Perhaps the fifth time is the charm?
Bailey Shoemaker 
Warren Little
Age: 20 | Country: U.S. World Amateur Golf Ranking: 45 Previous ANWA appearances: MC (2022), MC (2023), 2 (2024)
Notable: It looked like the USC All-American was going to take the title in 2024 when she posted a championship record at Augusta National with a bogey-free 66 in her final round. Ahead by two when she signed her scorecard, she then saw Lottie Woad make birdies on three of her last four holes to pull out the victory. There’s probably no one more motivated to win this week than Shoemaker.
Tsubasa Kajitani
Age: 21 | Country: Japan World Amateur Golf Ranking: NR Previous ANWA appearances: Win (2021), MC (2023)
Notable: Kajitani was the first international ANWA champion with her playoff victory in 2021. She did not enter the event in 2022, missed the cut in 2023 and was a late withdrawal in 2024. She hasn’t played in any event that counts in the World Amateur Golf Ranking since last September, so it’s unclear the state of her game. Still, it’s hard to keep a past champion off the list of players to watch.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
