Augusta National Women's Amateur: Experience guides players

There's a familiar theme surrounding the final round of the 2026 Augusta National Women's Amateur . Experience. For the second year in a row, the top 5 and ties on the leaderboard heading into Saturday have all played in previous ANWA tournaments.

Asterisk Talley, last year's runner-up, leads the way at 11-under. She is also the lone player in the field to go bogey-free through the first 36 holes of this tournament. Andrea Revuelta is the other 2025 top-10 finisher within striking distance.

That's no coincidence, either. Stanford's Meja Öretengren, who's in the middle of her fifth ANWA appearance, has learned more about the course with each round she's played Champions Retreat and Augusta National; with the latter bringing its own set of challenges. More: Asterisk Talley’s moment awaits on grandest stage at Augusta National “I think the first time you get to play Augusta National is very intimidating, and there's a lot of things going around outside of just the golf part," she said.

"So I think you need maybe at least a year to get to go around Augusta twice and see how it's really like in competitive settings. For me, myself, I think I've learned a little bit every single year, and I now feel more comfortable of playing at such a big stage. ” Friday's practice round, paired with Saturday for those who made the cut, becomes a crash course in learning one of the most challenging golf courses in the world.