Amelia Lyn Lewis (born February 23, 1991) is an American professional golfer. In December 2010 at age 19, Lewis became the first Jacksonville, Florida, native to be fully exempt on the LPGA Tour since Colleen Walker in 1982, some 28 years earlier.[1] In the following year (December 2011) Lewis became the first Jacksonville native to ever hold tour cards on both the LPGA Tour and Ladies European Tour.
Lewis holds over 53 titles in junior, amateur and professional golf. She is a three-time All-First Coast Player of the Year and the 2009 Florida First Coast Scholar Athlete.[2] She hold the course records at the Valley Course at the TPC Sawgrass where she won the 2008 CMAA World Championship and Overall championship Titles.
Lewis was born in Jacksonville, Florida, the daughter of Georgina (Hurst) and Chris Lewis. She is the oldest of four children and a fifth generation Jacksonville native. Lewis attended the private preparatory school The Bolles School, graduating in 2009 with Honors. She attended one semester at the University of Florida where she played on the women's golf team.[3] She left college in December 2009 to pursue her professional golf career.[4]
Amateur career
As a junior and amateur golfer, Lewis has often played and won on the Women's and Men's amateur tours in North Florida. In May 2008 she won the annual amateur CMAA World Championship & Overall championship Titles that launched her name to the National level across the United States. Lewis earned her entry from the Women's Champion status of the San Jose Country Club in Jacksonville, Florida. She went to the National Championship and set a new course record for her first day score of a 67 (5 under par) on the Valley Course, and then won the CMAA women's division with a total score of 2 under par on the TPC Sawgrass.[5] Later, in the CMAA Ultimate Division against the Men's Champion and Senior Men's Champion, Women's Champion Lewis, at 17 years old, completed a 15-foot birdie putt on the stadium course's 18th hole to win 2008 Ultimate Champion.[5] One year later after her high school graduation, Lewis won the 107th North and South Women's Amateur Golf Championship[6] in 2009, where her name currently resides on the walls of Pinehurst Resort in Pinehurst, North Carolina, with golf's greatest. The North and South Women's Amateur is an invitational tournament, participants are chosen based upon their performance in national amateur championships and overall competitive record. Also in the summer of 2009, she qualified for the U.S. Women's Amateur and upset top seeded Danielle Kang in the first round of match play.[7][8]
For nine months from August 2009 until she turned professional in April 2010 Lewis held the third-place ranking on the Golfweek Women's Amateur golf rankings right behind first place Lexi Thompson. After receiving a full exempt status of a class A-3 from the LPGA she turned professional[2] and joined the LPGA Symetra tour in April 2010. She won her first professional tournament six months later on the Suncoast Series Professional Tour.
United States.jpg)
