Rianne Malixi rode on an eagle on the 10th to storm to a joint second place at the start of the Australian Master of the Amateurs Tuesday in Melbourne.
The 16-year-old Malixi, hands down the country’s finest junior golfer, wrote a 3 on the 444-meter Par 5 Hole No. 10 for a three-under 70 at the Southern Golf Club.
Representing her home course Royal Northwoods Golf and Country Club, Malixi is bunched with South Korea’s Seryeong Cho and Malaysia’s Xuen Ng Jing.
They are all two shots behind solo leader Nika Ito of Japan who posted a 68 on the strength of a similar eagle on the 10th and birdies on Nos. 4, 5, 8, 9 and 17.
The incoming golf scholar at Duke thus opened her busy 2024 schedule on the right foot in the 72-hole tournament which offers spots in the Webex Players Series Hunter Valley at Oaks Cypress Lakes Resort.
Malixi birdied the 325m Par 4 5th before the eagle. She then birdied 14 before yielding a bogey on 16.
To dramatize her resilience, the Filipina birdied 17, only to bogey the closing hole.
