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Alyaa Abdulghany, third from left, helped the U.S. team win the Junior Ryder Cup in suburban Minneapolis.
Alyaa Abdulghany, third from left, helped the U.S. team win the Junior Ryder Cup in suburban Minneapolis.
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Orange County resident Alyaa Abdulghany helped the United States team win the Junior Ryder Cup Sept. 28 in suburban Minneapolis. It was the fifth consecutive victory for the U.S. squad, which defeated Europe, 15½-8½ in the biennial match.

Abdulghany, a senior at Corona del Mar High, defeated Julia Engstrom, 3 and 1, in their singles match. Eugene Hong, of Orlando, clinched the winning point on No. 18, as he sunk a 5-foot par putt, to halve the hole, and defeat Matias Honkala, 1 up.

“One team won, and one team did not,” U.S. captain Jim Remy said at the closing ceremony while accepting the trophy. “Yet, golf won today. This was a tremendous championship.”

With nine of the 12 players on the U.S. team ranked among the Top 10 junior boys and girls in the world, the American squad built off a 75 lead amassed the day before in foursomes and mixed four-ball.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I expect the team to be this good, not just in golf, but in the way they and the Europeans conducted themselves,” said Remy, the 36th president of the PGA of America.

In addition to her high school success, Abdulghany has been consistent at the junior golf level. She kicked off a solid 2015-16 season with a run to the Round of 16 at last summer’s U.S. Junior Amateur and followed it up with five consecutive Top 10 finishes in junior events. Among those finishes were a win at the AJGA Junior and a second-place finish at the prestigious Thunderbird International.

The 2018 Junior Ryder Cup will be held at Disneyland Golf near Paris, in conjunction with the 42nd Ryder Cup.