Let’s talk college golf — Another victory for Lydia Ko
The IX: Golf Thursday with Marin Dremock, Sept. 26, 2024
Happy autumn and happy Golf Thursday, golf fans! Hopefully the mornings and evenings are beginning to cool wherever you’re reading this. I’m very much looking forward to soup and sweaters.
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This week, with fall colors starting to emerge on the trees, college golf is on my mind. Not only is the fall golf season gorgeous, but my alma mater’s golf teams are kicking off their seasons as we speak. (Come on you birds! #FlyWithUs). My competitive spirit misses playing in college golf tournaments, so the most I can do is write about them.
Division I
2024 NCAA Division I champion Stanford kicks off its fall campaign on Thurs., Sept. 26 with a match against California. The Cardinal will look to build on a memorable 2023-24 season that included their first Pac-12 Championship since 2014 and a glorious return for senior Rachel Heck, who won the NCAA Cle Elum Regional and the match that clinched the NCAA D-I team title.
Stanford, who will now compete as part of the ACC, will enter the 2024–25 season No. 1 in the country, according to Golf Channel’s Preseason Rankings. The Cardinal also saw five players given preseason All-American honors.
Last year’s Women’s Golf Coaches Association Co-Freshman of the Year and 2024–25 First Team All-America selection Paula Martin Sampedro will return to action, along with fellow All-America selection Kelly Xu and honorable mention Megha Ganne.
Xu has 10 top-10 finishes in her first two seasons with the Card but is still hungry for her first individual win. Ganne was named the 2023 Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, and during her sophomore season, she boasted seven top-10 finishes and an individual win at the Carmel Cup.
Two first-years are already making waves for the Card. Meja Örtengren and Andrea Revuelta join Xu as Second Team All-America selections, despite not having played a single collegiate tournament yet. Their expectations are high, though, with Revuelta at number seven in the World Amateur Golf Rankings and Örtengren at 21st.
The Cardinal also received the number one spot in the 2024–25 Preseason Mizuno Women’s Golf Coaches Association Poll, by unanimous decision.
Here’s what’s awaiting Stanford this fall:
After the Card battle California in their season-opening match play event, they enter a stroke play contest in Seaside, Calif. from Sept. 30–Oct. 1. They’ll then travel to Albuquerque, N.M. Oct. 8–9 to face New Mexico, New Mexico State and Texas in the NB3 Match Play at Twin Warriors. On Oct. 18–20, Stanford hosts their intercollegiate tournament. Finally, to close out their fall, the Cardinal hop to Hawaii for the Nanea Invitational from Oct. 28–30.
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Division II
Topping the WGCA preseason rankings for Division II is Dallas Baptist University. The University of Indianapolis, which defeated DBU in the match play semifinals of last year’s D-II National Championship and went on to win the title, was surprisingly not ranked in the poll’s top five.
DBU’s fall season is in full swing, with a second place finish at Tulane’s Green Wave Classic in New Orleans earlier in September. Just last week, DBU claimed first place at their home invitational tournament by 22 strokes. Sophomore Ella Cheek took home her second individual win with a tournament total score of 11-under.
The Patriots will seek to continue their hot start to the season later this month, from Sept. 30–Oct. 1 at the West Regional Preview hosted by West Texas A&M University. They then get a look at this year’s National Championship venue, Boulder Creek Golf Club in Las Vegas, at the National Preview from Oct. 7–8. To wrap up the fall, DBU takes a trip down south from Nov. 4–5 to compete in the Rollins Legends Invitational at Championsgate Country Club in Orlando, Fla.
Division III
To round out the NCAA preseason polls, defending national champion Carnegie Mellon University takes the No. 1 spot. In the WGCA polling, they received all but two votes to earn their rank.
In last year’s NCAA Division III National Championship at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Ky., CMU overcame a 3-stroke deficit to Emory University after the first round. The Tartans took the lead after day three of competition and held it after the final round. CMU won the championship by 14 strokes.
Carnegie Mellon started their fall season with a four-team match play contest on Sept. 9–10 in Batavia, Ohio. The Tartans beat NYU 4 and 1 to advance to the finals but then fell to Emory 4 and 1. CMU then faced a host of teams at Montgomery Country Club in Montgomery Ala. on Sept. 22–23. The team finished tied for second, with graduate student Alexis Sudjianto leading the way. She carded rounds of 72 and 70 to finish 2-under for the tournament, good enough for a tie for third out of 63 golfers.
To round out their fall, Carnegie Mellon will host their Tartan Invitational tournament at Nemacolin Resort in Farmington, Pa. from Oct. 7–8. For the last competition, they take a trip to Florida for the Golfweek Invitational at Sandestin Resort.
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NAIA
Keiser University takes the top spot in the NAIA preseason poll after winning the championship last season. Their fall campaign began on Sept. 16–17 with a win at their home invitational at PGA National (Match Course) in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. The team won the Seahawk Shootout by 12 strokes over D-II participant Palm Beach Atlantic.
Keiser has two tournaments to finish their fall season, both in late October in their home state of Florida. On Oct. 22–23, the Seahawks battle in the Saint Leo Invitational at Lake Jovita Country Club, and on Oct. 28–29, they take on the SEU Invitational at Grasslands Country Club.
From the writer
Please keep tabs on your local or favorite women’s collegiate golf teams. Look up their schedules. Find out who’s on their roster. Find out where they’re playing. Show up to the course, take a walk, spectate. These girls are fun to watch and even more fun to support.
Collegiate golf takes hours of commitment and hard work. These athletes love golf. Golf is the breath in their lungs. They push their bodies to the limit in the gym and put their brains through the most absurd mental tests on the course. They wear their school colors with pride, knowing that they’re representing something so much larger than themselves. They wouldn’t do this, and more, if they didn’t live for this sport.
Trust me, I’m speaking from experience.
So give your college golf girls some love! Just because you don’t see the under-par numbers that Texas or Alabama put up week by week doesn’t mean the D-III grinders don’t produce some incredible scores. Shoutout to my fellow MAC Conference girls at Alvernia University for breaking their school record for the fourth time in the last two seasons. Insanity.
College golfers play with grit. That competitive fire is what makes this kind of golf so special.
Cheers to autumn.
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Five at The IX: Lydia Ko wins Kroger Queen City Championship with final round 63
Lydia Ko finds herself in the winner’s circle yet again. With her third win of the season and 22nd of her career, Ko is projected to move to number 2 in the Race to the CME Globe. The New Zealander has been having quite the year, procuring a gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and winning her third major at the AIG Women’s Open in St. Andrews. Here’s what she had to say after her win at TPC River’s Bend.
THE MODERATOR: All right here with the winner of the Kroger Queen City Championship presented by P&G, Lydia Ko. We’ll make this one short. We know you have a very important flight to catch to Korea.
With the week, just another win for you, your first back-to-back start win since 2016. What’s been this whole stretch from Olympics to Hall of Fame, AIG, and now here? What has this whole stretch been like for you?
LYDIA KO: Yeah, it’s been pretty surreal. I think the closer you get I think in ways doubts come into your mind and you never know like, oh, what if I am that one point away and it never happens.
For the most part I think I was able to handle the situation pretty well. Never in a million years would I have guessed that I now would’ve gone into the Hall of Fame through winning the gold in Paris and then winning my first major since 2016 at the AIG Women’s Open.
I mean, the European swing was some of the best golf I had played. I was very grateful for that span of weeks, few weeks. It was nice to take a few weeks off.
When you do take that kind of time off, doesn’t necessarily mean that the form is going to continue. But I played really solid on the first day and just kept giving myself a lot of good opportunities. Even though there are some tougher holes out here at TPC River’s Bend I felt really comfortable out there.
I wanted to post a good score today to kind of give myself a good run at it. I wouldn’t have guessed coming into today that I was going to shoot 9-under. To be able to do that is definitely a cool way to cap off this week.
Q. That round looked easy out there. How easy does golf feel right now with the way you’re playing, the way you’re ball striking, the way you’re putting at this moment?
LYDIA KO: I don’t think it’s ever easy. You know, you could win by 10 strokes and still never feel like it was an easy round. I know that I’m playing alongside the best female golfers and I’ve just got to focus until that last putt drops on the last hole.
I just want to give it my all. My ball striking has been a part of my game that I feel like has improved a lot and something that I’m more and more comfortable with, especially coming down the stretch when there are big things on the line.
For that to be better I think that takes a little stress off my short game. It goes hand in hand, because when your ball striking is good you feel like you’re not putting or chipping as well. I think I would rather that way around than feeling stressed to make up and down on half of the holes that I play.
Yeah, it’s been improving a lot and I feel like I progressed a lot. Whether it’s actually with my technique, also the mental side of things as well.
So that’s kind of the aspect I’m most proud of. I feel like I’m able to hand these situations a lot better than maybe a couple months ago yeah.
Q. Jeeno was just up here and was complimenting you as somebody she really looks up to you. What does that mean to hear that from a player that I guess you were in her shoes a few years ago?
LYDIA KO: Yeah, I asked her what year she was born yesterday. I knew she was young, but she’s so mature. She’s a name that we’ve heard for a really long time, teen phenomenon. She was like, ‘I’m 21.’ I was like, what?
I mean, she’s so impressive. I’ve been able to play alongside her the last three years she’s been on tour. She hits the ball a long way and she has such good composure out there.
I think that’s one of the strengths of her game. I remember in Arkansas we played the first round or the second round together and she gave me a hug and said, like, something along the lines of like, ‘Hey I know it hasn’t been the way that I wanted to end last year, my season but you’re somebody I really look up to.’
That meant a lot to me. We’re still competing and still hoping that I’m going to be the one that’s hoisting the trophy, and as competitors for her to say something like that, it means a lot.
I feel grateful to be able to play alongside these players like Jeeno because I know they’re going to keep pushing me and motivate me to keep improving.
Q. Coming in from afar. I recall a few times you saying you really didn’t know what would happen once you got into the Hall of Fame, if you were to win the gold medal how would you react. Would you want to keep playing or call it quits, what would the feeling be. It seems like with your career grand slam goal you were just telling Amy about you have been reinvigorated by the whole thing; is that fair to say?
LYDIA KO: Yeah, Lorena Ochoa is somebody I really look up to. I hoped that my career would be quite similar too. Retiring when I’m still playing well. I think I’ve always said that I would rather retire and then at one point say, ‘Oh, if I kept playing maybe I could have won a few more’ than retire at a point where I feel like I should have left the game a long time ago.
I don’t know when that moment is right now. I enjoyed these past three weeks, and it was great being home and not to live out of my suitcase. While I’m competitively playing it’s good to have goals. The career grand slam seems too far out there, but what has happened the past couple months have been that extent of craziness I guess.
So I just wanted to set a goal that was something that I can work towards and whether that happens or not isn’t as important. It’s just more the drive for me to keep wanting to put myself in contention and hopefully be the one holding the trophy at the end of the week more and more after this week as well.
Q. Winner in back-to-back starts. Olympic gold medalist; three time winner now this season. What are your goals now looking to the closing stretch of the season?
LYDIA KO: Yeah, I think I pretty much told myself, ‘Hey, I don’t know if this is going to happen,’ but the things that I didn’t believe in happened these past couple months.
I struggled a lot during the middle of the season, and I was in a place where, OK am I really going to be in the Hall of Fame and all of those doubts.
I had a fairytale of those past couple months and now I feel like if I set my mind to it, maybe I can do it.
So I think it’s always been the goal of mine to do the career grand slam. I thought that would be so out there.
I feel like I’ve already been part of this fairytale, so why not?
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