The opening round of the 2026 Arizona Women’s Senior Amateur Championship at Camelback Golf Club’s Padre Course featured plenty of strong play and one unforgettable shot.
Jewell Malick made an ace on the par-3 11th hole, playing 127 yards from the tee. With an 8-iron in hand, Malick sent her shot toward the green and watched as it disappeared from view.
“There’s a hill on the left side of the green. It went over the hill and hit the green,” Malick said. “Unfortunately I can’t see without my glasses on but the girls I was playing with said it was tracking. Then it just went in.”
The ace is Malick’s eighth career hole-in-one, by her estimate.
“It’s been a good while and I’ve never had one in competition so that was cool,” she said.
While Malick provided one of the round’s biggest highlights, the Championship Division leaderboard is already shaping up to be a battle between some of the top names in senior women’s golf.
Nadene Gole, a former U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur champion and Scottish Senior Women’s Open champion, leads the championship after opening with a 1-under-par round.
Gole opened her day with a bogey but responded immediately with a birdie on her second hole. She added another birdie later in the round to take the clubhouse lead.
Just behind Gole is Sue Wooster, the defending Arizona Senior Women’s Champion champion of the past two years. She opened this year’s event with a 1-over-par, 73.
Wooster carded one birdie and two bogeys to sit in a tie for second with Chandler’s Amy Arnold who supplied another memorable shot of the day when she eagled the par-5 fifth hole.
The second round begins Wednesday morning, with the 54-hole championship concluding Thursday. At the end of the week, one player will leave Camelback Golf Club as the 2026 Arizona Women’s Senior Amateur champion and take home the coveted Kachina Trophy.
