Texas prep star Dodd and Vietnam's Do reach final of Women's Publinx

UCLA's Brianna Do and Texas high school star Marissa Dodd advanced to the 36-hole final in the Women's U.S. Amateur Public Links at Bandon Dunes.

The 21-year-old Do beat Bruins teammate Stephanie Kono 2-up in the quarterfinals Friday morning, then topped 16-year-old Annie Park of Levittown, N.Y., 2 and 1 in strong wind in the afternoon semifinals.

"The wind picked up and it was a lot more difficult," said Do, who was born in southern California but is representing her parents' home country of Vietnam this week. "I had way more birdies in the morning than I had this round. We were halving holes with bogeys, but this morning I had to halve a hole with birdies and pars to stay in it. It was kind of a different course out here with the wind."

The 17-year-old Dodd, from Allen, Texas, edged Scotland's Sally Watson, a Stanford student, 1-up in the quarterfinals, and beat Tiffany Lua, a UCLA player from Rowland Heights, Calif., 2 and 1 in the semifinals.

"My swing was a little off going into the first two holes," said Dodd, who has committed to play for Wake Forest in the fall. "I think things first started to turn around on the third hole. I almost drove the green with a hybrid, so that kind of got my juices flowing a little bit. About the sixth or seventh hole, I started to get really confident and in a groove. I just felt like I started playing back to my game."

Park beat Cheyenne Woods, the niece of Tiger Woods, 3 and 2 in the quarterfinals.

"I just wasn't really feeling my swing," Woods said. "I wasn't hitting it well this morning, so when I was out on the course, I was trying to find that one swing thought that would click and make me feel comfortable about there. But I never really was comfortable."

The tournament is limited to players who don't hold privileges at any course that doesn't extend playing privileges to the general public.