Ava Merrill of Johns Creek, the 2025 Georgia Women’s Amateur champion, will be among the elite field of 72 who will compete at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, April 1-4.
Merrill qualified by being one of the top 30 American players who had not already earned a spot in the field. She is the only Georgian in the competition.
“I got an email that said I was going to be receiving a package from them,” she said. “And when the envelope came it was pretty and it’s green and I was certainly excited when I saw it.”
The first two rounds of the ANWA are conducted on Wednesday and Thursday at Champions Retreat. The entire field then gets to play a practice round at Augusta National on Friday, with the top 30 and ties returning for the final round on Saturday.
A junior at Vanderbilt University, Merrill was ranked No. 91 in the Official World Amateur Rankings at the time of her invitation. She had nine top-10 finishes and two victories over the previous two years. She was an honorable mention All-American selection at Vandy and finished 14th at the NCAA Women’s Championships.
She qualified for the 2025 U.S. Women’s Amateur and reached the quarterfinals of the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball with partner LoraLei Cowart, who played at Georgia and Georgia Southern.
Merrill said her caddie for the week will be PGA instructor Jimmy Harris, her coach at Atlanta Athletic Club. Harris was on the bag when she won the Georgia Women’s Am last summer at Dunwoody Country Club.
The Augusta National Women’s Amateur began in 2019 and has rapidly become one of the signature events of women’s amateur golf, second only in prestige to the U.S. Women’s Amateur. In 2022, University of Georgia standout Jenny Bae lost in a playoff to world No. 1 Rose Zhang.
This article originally appeared in Golf Georgia magazine.
