EVANS, GEORGIA | On a perfect April 1 morning for scoring, Asterisk, Aphrodite and Patience showed up at the first tee …
It sounds like the start of an April Fools’ Day joke, but at Champions Retreat in the first round of the seventh Augusta National Women’s Amateur, Asterisk Talley, Aphrodite Deng and Patience Rhodes were one of the power groupings with high expectations.
None more so than Talley, who finished top 10 in her two prior ANWA starts including runner-up last year. Since she arrived on the ANWA scene as a lanky 15-year-old in 2024, she has lived up to her unique name, which means “little star” in Greek. Her mother, Brandii, is of Greek descent, and when a friend stumbled while suggesting the name Astrid before their daughter was born, the Talleys thought the verbal slip and the heritage definition of Asterisk was a sign they should go with the cool moniker.
Now 17, ranked No. 9 in the women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking and committed to join the collegiate juggernaut at Stanford, Asterisk has developed into a bona fide star on the amateur scene. But don’t call her a “favorite” despite her résumé that heralds her as one. After firing a 6-under 66 at Champions Retreat on Wednesday to sit tied third with Canada’s Vanessa Borovilos and Spain’s Andrea Revuelta, just a shot behind Colombia’s María José Marín and South Korea’s Soomin Oh, Talley dismissed the label.
“I mean, I don’t really like to think of myself as a favorite,” she said. “I think of everyone in this field as a favorite. Everyone here is pretty good. So I’m just trying to put myself in a good position … and trying to play my best golf.”
Talley first showed up in Augusta for the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals in 2018 and 2022, finishing in the top five of her age group both times. Two weeks before her ANWA debut in 2024, she won the prestigious Girls’ Junior Invitational across the Savannah River at Sage Valley (a feat she repeated two weeks ago). She backed that up with a tie for eighth at Augusta National.
Asterisk’s star was scheduled to be even brighter this week with plans to have Miles Russell – the world’s No. 1 junior boy – caddie for her.
If she was lightly known other than her name to that point, it all changed after that. Through the rest of 2024, Talley won the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball (with Sarah Lim) and finished runner-up to Rianne Malixi in both the U.S. Girls’ Junior and the U.S. Women’s Amateur – becoming the first player ever to compete in three USGA championship final matches in the same year.
She’s now a member of the United States National Junior Team and has represented the U.S. in the Curtis Cup as well as the Junior Solheim and Junior Ryder Cups.
Last week in the LPGA’s Ford Championship in Arizona, Talley registered her best finish in a pro event with a T29. She was actually in contention for a top-10 finish after rounds of 69, 65 and 68 before a Sunday 74 dropped her back. It still showed how well she belongs among the elite in the women’s game.
Asterisk’s star was scheduled to be even brighter this week with plans to have Miles Russell – the world’s No. 1 junior boy – caddie for her. The two struck up a friendship as U.S. National teammates and each of them won for a second time at Sage Valley in March. But Russell finished T15 in last week’s Korn Ferry Tour event in Savannah, Georgia, and that qualified him to play again this week in the KFT event in Florida instead.
“I’m super happy for Miles that he got into that this week,” Talley said.
“I asked him specifically, like, a couple months ago, and he was super excited about it,” she said about him carrying her bag this week to get to learn the Augusta National course before he presumably qualifies to compete in the Masters some day. “We were ready to have a lot of fun. I mean, obviously he was a little bummed, too, that he couldn’t be here this week. But I mean, still both super fun weeks for us, and I think we’re both really excited to get going this week.”
A veteran such as Talley knows the key is getting out of two rounds at Champions Retreat unscathed to be one of the top 30 and ties that qualify for the final round at Augusta National on Saturday – especially considering that 30 players shot in the red on Wednesday.
Her own comfort on big stages was evident on a bright Wednesday morning at Champions Retreat. Starting on the back nine – the Jack Nicklaus-designed Bluff nine of Champions Retreat’s 27 holes which includes Arnold Palmer’s Island nine for the front side during ANWA as well as Gary Player’s unused Creek nine – Talley quickly asserted herself with birdies at 11, 12 and 14. Then she lit a fuse with a hole-out eagle from the greenside bunker on the par-5 18th hole to get to 5-under at the turn, eliciting the loudest roar of the day from the patrons who mostly congregate around the clubhouse.
“I was honestly just trying to barely get it on the green and let it roll out all the way to the flag,” she said. “I knew it was going to be pretty fast. I was honestly just trying to get it within 10 feet, and it ended up going in, so it was pretty cool.”
Talley finished with a clean card, but only one birdie on her second nine allowed Marín and later Oh to catch and pass her with finishing birdies on their respective par-5s. “It was a little slow on the back nine, but I mean, I had a bogey-free round, so it was pretty steady all day,” Talley said.
A veteran such as Talley knows the key is getting out of two rounds at Champions Retreat unscathed to be one of the top 30 and ties who qualify for the final round at Augusta National on Saturday – especially considering that 30 players shot in the red on Wednesday.
“Pretty happy about it,” she said of her 66. “Glad that the cut is pretty secured right now, and I think I’m just trying to get a good round in tomorrow to hopefully have a good position going into Augusta.
“It’s pretty crucial just knowing that scores are going to be low here and just knowing that someone is going to catch fire at least one of the days.”
There’s not a lot of separation at the top of the leaderboard, with 11 players shooting 68 or better on Wednesday. WAGR No. 7 Marín – making her fourth ANWA appearance but first as the reigning NCAA women’s individual champion – and No. 10 Oh share the lead with Talley, No. 3 Andrea Revuelta of Spain and No. 24 Borovilos hot on their heels. After missing the cut last year, Marín understood the stakes of taking advantage of the scoring conditions Wednesday.
“I feel like last year gave me a lot of – it was a lot of learning,” Marín said. “There was a lot of tears, and of course this tournament means a lot to me. Not making the cut, it hurt a lot. But I learned that I’ve got to stay with my two feet on the ground, that I have to be really patient with my game, that if things are not going my way, I don’t have to push it, that I just have to wait for golf to do its thing.
“This start, it gives me a lot of confidence going into (Thursday), and heading into the final round we’ll see what happens, but it gives me a lot of confidence.”