Brooke Oberparleiter and Kim Keyer-Scott capture titles at Doherty golf tournament

Brooke Oberparleiter and Kim Keyer-Scott saved their best golf for last, as they both captured their respective division titles in the 89th Ione D. Jones/Doherty Women’s Amateur Championship on a cool, breezy Friday morning at Coral Ridge Country Club in Fort Lauderdale.

Oberparleiter defeated Amateur division defending champion Alexa Pano 2 up. It was the first time the 16-year-old, who spends winters in Jupiter and the rest of the year in Blackwood, N.J., played in the event, whose past winners include current LPGA Tour pros Charley Hull and Lexi Thompson, as well as former professionals JoAnne Carner, Michelle McGann, Natalie Gulbis and Vicki Goetze.

“That was definitely one of the best rounds I’ve ever played in my life, and that’s what I needed today, so it came at the right time, that’s for sure,” said Oberparleiter, who started playing tournament golf when she was “11 or 12” and whose only previous victory was this past summer in an American Junior Golf Association tournament.

Keyer-Scott, 54, of Estero, won the Senior championship, defeating Susan Curtin of Westwood, Mass., 4 and 3. Corey Weworski of Carlsbad, Calif., beat Amy Kennedy of Naples to win the Senior first flight title.

“I played great,” said Keyer-Scott, who was 3 under par for her 15 holes, who was 3 up after four holes. “Once I got up, all I was doing was trying to hit greens and make her make putts.”

After halving the first hole with Pano, who was seeking her third consecutive Doherty title and fourth overall, Oberparleiter lost the second hole with a bogey, and halved the third. She then birdied the fourth, halved the fifth with a birdie, and went 1 up with a birdie at the sixth.

“The first couple of holes my nerves were definitely up, but then I decided to calm down and that’s when the birdies started coming,” Oberparleiter said.

The match went back to all square when Oberparleiter bogeyed the seventh, she halved the eighth, then she birdied the ninth to get back to 1 up.

She and Pano parred the next four holes, then Oberparleiter birdied 14 to go 2 up. They halved 15 and Oberparleiter lost 16 after she lipped out her par putt.

“Going into 17, I was definitely feeling it,” Oberparleiter said of her nerves. “I just tried to relax and take a couple of deep breaths and hit the driver like I’d been hitting it all day.”

Both she and Pano had two-putt pars on 17. On 18, after Pano hit her approach from 90 yards onto the front of the green, Oberparleiter put a 58-degree wedge from 75 yards nine feet from the pin.

Facing a tricky uphill-downhill putt from more than 20 feet away, as soon as Pano stroked her birdie attempt she knew it wasn’t going in and she walked over to Oberparleiter and conceded the hole.