He didn’t bother this time – The Stanford women’s golf team made sure of it.
On Wednesday, the Cardinal cruised to their third NCAA Women’s Golf Championship in the last five years, defeating Southern California 4-1 in the finals at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California.
Stanford earned the no. 1 seed for the sixth consecutive year, although last year it was upset by Northwestern in the finals, which ended the Cardinal’s hopes of a title defense after winning in 2024.
But this sad story hardly had a heartbeat this time.
Meja Ortengren defeated Jasmine Koo 6 and 5 to give Stanford its first point of three points it needed, and Paula Martin Sampedro won the second when she beat Catherine Park 3 and 2. Megha Ganne gave Stanford the winning point, defeating Bailey Shoemaker 4 and 3. With Stanford, the remaining two games mean winning behind the course. Stanford’s Kelly Xu earned 1 lead in her match and USC’s Kylie Chong beat Andrea Revuelta 1 to give the Trojans their lone point.
or charged the Stanford team was always the favourite, but that also meant he had to deal with the pressure. All five Stanford players who competed in the NCAA Championship also qualified for the Augusta Women’s National Amateur last month (Revuelta was the runner-up), and four of the five are in the top 10 of the women’s amateur golf world rankings. Sampedro, who won the British Amateur and European Ladies Amateur last summer, is ranked second; Revolt 3; and Ortengren 6. Ganne, who won the US women’s amateur championship last summer, is 10th; and Xu is 17th.
“These players all season long have fought and had their backs against the wall,” Stanford coach Anne Walker said. The Golf Channel Wednesday. “They played great. I knew if we had a chance with this crew, we were going to be in it until the end. That’s certainly what played out and we’re going to come home champions.”
Stanford’s win followed dominant wins over Pepperdine in the quarterfinals and Eastern Michigan in the semifinals; Stanford won both 5-0.
“I think the confidence comes from our preparation and knowing how hard they all prepare and how hard I prepare,” Ganne told Golf Channel. “That’s really all we can control, and we do all the things correctly going into this week and continue to control the controllable things and knowing that we’re really good players and if we follow our routines, we’ll finish on top.”
On the women’s side, Stanford now stands alone with four NCAA titles, which trails only Arizona State (eight) and Duke (seven). All Stanfords have come since 2015.
The NCAA Golf Championship continues this week at the Omni La Costa with the men’s tournament. The stroke play portion is Friday through Monday, with match play on Tuesday and Wednesday.
