Leonie Harm on Sunday became the first German to win the Ladies Amateur Championship.
Ranked 33rd in the Women’s Amateur Golf Ranking, the 20-year-old Houston Cougar defeated Northwestern’s Stephanie Lau, 3 and 2, at Southport to claim the Pam Barton Memorial Salver.
With the win, Harm qualifies for the 2018 Ricoh Women’s British Open Championship, the 2018 Evian Championship, the 2019 U.S. Women’s Open and the inaugural 2019 Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship.
The newly earned exemptions will necessitate a shakeup of her calendar.
“It’s a cool opportunity, I’m really excited,” Harm said. “I’ll see if I can arrange it with my coach because I have something else scheduled but obviously the Ricoh is the priority for me.”
That she is even alive to have such an opportunity is a mathematical miracle.
Harm was struck by a drunk driver at 45 miles per hour in 2013 while she was jogging. Per a Golf Digest profile, she “suffered broken ribs, a broken hip and ankle, a collapsed lung and head injuries.” Doctors informed her family they would “do what we can, but there’s no hope,” as “people hit at that speed have a 99.6 percent fatality rate.”
But Harm survived and managed to return to golf. She posted this item to Instagram a little over two years ago on the third anniversary of her accident:
Now, five years after doctors wrote her off, she is the Ladies Amateur Champion.