By: Steve Derderian
sderderian@massgolf.org
FITCHBURG, Massachusetts (August 14, 2026) — Isabel Brozena needed only two putts. Two putts from the right side of the 17th green to finish the matchup many had anticipated, secure the title she returned to defend and achieve something no player had done in more than a decade.
Nothing about it felt that simple.
The championship match of the 123rd Massachusetts Women’s Amateur Championship delivered on the promise of its top two seeds and U.S. Women’s Amateur competitors, with Xavier’s Brozena (Indian Ridge Country Club) and medalist Molly Smith (Mount Pleasant Golf Club), of the University of Central Florida, trading quality shots under pressure and refusing to let one another relax Friday morning at Oak Hill Country Club. Even after Brozena completed her 2&1 victory, she could still feel the match’s grip on her nerves.
“I’m still feeling a little bit nervous over that last putt I had,” Brozena said after the victory. “This match, it was grueling. I couldn’t let up for a second, and so I think I’m just feeling the impacts of that still.”
It took 11 years—and apparently another Isabel—for the Massachusetts Women’s Amateur to produce another repeat champion. Brozena became the first player to accomplish the feat since Boston College’s Isabel Southard went back-to-back in 2014 and 2015. Brozena’s second title carried a significance all its own. After describing last year’s victory as something of a “coming-out party,” the North Reading native returned determined to prove it was no one-week breakthrough.
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The drama surfaced immediately when Smith’s opening drive sailed out of bounds toward the road along the right side, allowing Brozena to take an early lead. Brozena then birdied the par-4 2nd to go 2-up, but Smith, outwardly nonchalant as she ate a snack, answered by winning the 3rd as she stuffed a wedge inside 4 feet and made birdie, then nearly pulled the match even on the 4th when another birdie putt circled the cup and spun out.
Brozena won the 6th and proceeded to carry a 2-up advantage across the road after nine holes before facing one of the match’s most precarious moments on the par-5 10th, where her ball settled awkwardly on the grass face of a bunker as Smith played from the fairway. Instead of surrendering momentum, Brozena hit the bailout shot, then knocked her next shot inside makable range below the hole. Smith’s approach missed over the left shoulder of the green, and after chipping across it, she was unable to convert her birdie putt. Brozena then poured in a sharply breaking birdie putt and delivered one of several emphatic right-handed fist pumps as her lead grew to 3-up.
“That was a crazy switch for me,” Brozena said of the 10th. “It made me feel so pumped that I could get to the end of this match because I was saying, I’m two up through nine, and I found myself in a bunker. I could so easily just be 1-up right now, and it could just go to all square like that. When I hit that great approach shot and saw her on the left, I knew that was going to be a tough chip. And then, obviously, rolling it in helps.”
Smith still had plenty of firepower left and refused to let the closing stretch become a formality. Both players stuffed their approaches close for matching birdies on the 11th, and Smith, who had already staged one back-nine rally earlier in the week, cut into the deficit with a crisp 6-iron and birdie on the par-3 13th. She also took the 15th when Brozena hit over the green.
But each time, the champion responded with a confident drive on the next tee. Her boldest swing came on the reachable 14th, when she waved off her father and caddie’s suggestion to play an iron.
“I’m sure I’m ripping driver right now,” Brozena recalled. “It’s getting up there.”
The decision paid off, as she received stance relief from a sprinkler head, chipped on and converted another putt to restore her 3-up advantage. Brozena nearly missed a closeout putt on the 16th but arrived at the downhill par-3 17th, with its tight front hole location, needing only to tie the hole. With Smith facing the longer birdie attempt, Brozena deliberately played to the right side of the green, leaving herself the uphill putt she wanted. Two putts later, the championship and a guaranteed spot in the 2027 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Pinehurst No. 2 belonged to her.
“I think there was still something more to prove,” Brozena said. “I came here to say it wasn’t. I’m here to play, and I came here with the goal to win and to defend. The fact that I did it is obviously very validating.”
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Age: 20; Hometown: North Reading, MA
Club: Indian Ridge Country Club (Andover, MA)
School: Xavier University ‘28
Accolades:
ROAD TO THE FINAL
Stroke Play: 72-72—144 (E)
R32: Def. Jacqueline Gonzalez, 5&3
R16: Def. Kylie Eaton, 7&6
Quarterfinals: Def. Erika Redmond, 2&1
Semifinals: Def. Morgan Smith, 7&6
Final: Def. Molly Smith, 2&1
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