ESPN Golf

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- Diane Lang successfully defended her USGA Senior Women's Amateur title Thursday, beating Anna Schultz 1-up at Sea Island Golf Club.

Lang, the 51-year-old Jamaican-born player who lives in Weston, Fla., became the seventh woman to win consecutive titles in the tournament.

"I'm very excited to have won for a second time," Lang said. "I was hoping that it was going to be a good week but I thought two in a row might be too much to ask for."

Schultz, also 51, from Rockwall, Texas, took a 3-up lead when Lang bogeyed the eighth hole on the Seaside Course.

"I knew I had to get the lead on the front because the back is longer and she's a long hitter," said Schultz, the 2000 U.S. Women's Mid-Amateur runner-up.

Lang, who overcame a 2-down deficit after nine holes last year in the final against Carol Semple Thompson at The Apawamis Club in Rye, N.Y., won the ninth with an eight-foot birdie putt and took the 10th with a bogey.

"I knew I really wanted to get one back at nine," Lang said. "Things were not looking good and I thought, 'I have to win this hole.' If I didn't win, she would probably have beaten me."

On the par-4, 348-yard 11th hole, Lang looked to be in trouble after she hit her tee shot behind a tree on the left side of the fairway. But she hit a punch shot that came to rest in the rough 30 yards short of the hole. With Schultz on the front of the green, Lang hit the shot of the day, rolling a perfect chip into the hole. After Schultz's 40-footer for birdie lipped out, the match was all square.

"I pictured it in my mind," Lang said. "I thought I could make it and it just came off perfect. And when I looked up, in the hole. So that was my divine intervention shot, for sure."

But after Lang missed a two-foot par putt on the par-3 12th, Schultz again had a 1-up lead. On the par-4 14th, Lang hit her approach shot to three feet. After Schultz's four-footer for par slid by the hole, she conceded Lang's birdie putt.

Lang finally took her first lead of the match a hole later, when she made an 18-foot birdie putt and Schultz was unable to match from eight feet. It was the first time Schultz had trailed in any of her six matches during the 2006 championship.

"I had my chances," said Schultz, who missed just one fairway all day. "My putter got a little cold coming down the stretch on the last four holes."

After the two traded pars on the 16th hole, Schultz's six-footer for birdie on the 17th slid by the hole. She had a final chance on the par-4 18th hole when Lang missed her 30-foot birdie putt but missed her birdie try from 12 feet. Lang then knocked in her two-footer for par to claim the championship for a second consecutive year.

She is the first player to win back-to-back Senior Women's Amateur titles since Thompson, who won four consecutive titles from 1999 to 2002. Other players to win consecutive titles are Loma Smith (1964-64), Carolyn Cudone (1968-72), Alice Dye (1978-79), Dorothy Porter (1980-81) and Anne Sander (1989-90). Lang and Thompson are the only two to have done so since the championship switched to a match-play format in 1997.

"This is even better than the first time," Lang said. "The match today was so tough. Anna really played beautifully."

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press