It was fitting that UCLA, ranked No. 3 in the latest Golfstat rankings, and No. 1 Alabama
finished tied for first in the team standings and certainly fitting that Wake
Forest’s Jennifer Kupcho, a junior from Westminster, Colo. and the No. 3 player
in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), captured the NCAA’s
individual championship.
There was plenty of redemption on the final day of
qualifying for match play for the teams and the final day of individual
competition in the NCAA Championship Monday at Karsten Creek Golf Club in
Stillwater, Okla.
But there was heartbreak, too, for a Baylor team that
rallied to tie Arizona for the final spot in match play only to fall to the
Wildcats in a playoff and for Arkansas, ranked second and so solid from the moment
the Razorbacks teed off last summer, coming up one excruciating shot short of
joining that playoff for eighth.
Match play begins Tuesday for eight teams still alive with a
shot for an NCAA championship and Arkansas, the Southeast Conference champion, the
winner of the Austin Regional, is not one of them.
Kupcho looked like the winner in the dreadful weather of a
year ago at Rich Harvest Farms until the 53rd hole of the
tournament, reduced to 54 holes by what passes for springtime in the Chicago
area.
And she looked like the winner again when she opened this
year’s tournament with a brilliant 7-under-par 65 over the 6,328-yard, par-72
Karsten Creek layout, a round that featured seven birdies and a closing eagle,
a 30-footer finding the bottom of the cup at the last.
But Kupcho backed off with a 2-over 74 in the second round
before rebounding with a 2-under 70 in Sunday’s third round that left her tied
for the lead at 7-under going into Monday’s final round.
Then there was some adversity. A bogey at five, a flyer at
six that led to a double bogey and then a bogey at six. Suddenly Kupcho was
4-under and four shots out of the lead.
But Kupcho didn’t get mad, she got going. Birdies at 11, 12
and 14 got her back into a tie for the lead at 7-under. She dropped a shot with
a bogey at 15, but then a bomb of a birdie putt fell at 16 and she took a
two-shot lead to the 18th hole.
One more birdie at the last gave her a 1-under 71 in the
final round with all that pressure, with all those bad memories of a year ago
and an 8-under 280 total.
And an NCAA title, the first for a Wake Forest woman. Three
Wake men have won NCAA individual titles, Curtis Strange in 1974, Jay Haas in
1975 and Gary Hallberg in 1979. If you’re reading a golf blog, you’ve heard of
all of those guys. And somewhere the greatest Wake Forest player of them all,
Arnold Palmer, was smiling.
Kupcho’s teammate for next month’s Curtis Cup Match against
Great Britain & Ireland at Quaker Ridge, Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y.,
Stanford’s Andrea Lee, a sophomore from Hermosa Beach, Calif. and No. 5 in the
Women’s WAGR, matched Kupcho’s spectacular opening round with a closing 7-under
65 to get a share of second place with Arizona’s Bianca Pagdanganan, a junior
from the Philippines, at 6-under 282, two shots behind Kupcho.
Pagdanganan matched par in the final round and also had a
huge birdie on the second round of the playoff with Baylor that helped Arizona
grab that final spot in match play.
Alabama’s Cheyenne Knight, a junior from Aledo, Texas and
No. 14 in the Women’s WAGR, finished alone in fourth at 5-under 283 after a
final round of 2-over 74.
Florida State’s Morgane Metraux, a senior from Switzerland,
shared fifth place with Ohio State’s Jaclyn Lee, a junior from Canada and the
Big Ten champion.
Metraux and sister Kim had been battling back and forth all
weekend, but Morgane’s final round of 4-under 68 gave her low-Metraux honors
for the day and for the tournament. Kim Metraux, also a senior, entered the
final round tied for fifth at 3-under, but fell back with a final-round 77 that
left her tied for 17th at 2-over 290. Still, a pretty nice way to go
out at Florida State for Team Metraux.
Jaclyn Lee, who had surged into contention with a sizzling
6-under 66 in Sunday’s third round, had a 2-over 74 in the final round, but
certainly had a nice showing in Stillwater.
UCLA, the Pac-12 champion, and Alabama, the winner of the
Tallahassee Regional, have exchanged the No. 1 ranking all season, with
Arkansas taking a couple of turns in the top spot.
The Bruins made up eight shots on the Crimson Tide with a
final round of 3-over 291. Alabama maybe wasn’t at its best with an 11-over
299, but at 9-over 1,161, two of the best teams in the country stood at the top
of the heap after 72 holes of stroke play.
UCLA won the tiebreaker – cumulative total of the teams’
dropped fifth score throughout the tournament – and will get Pac-12 rival
Arizona in a quarterfinal match Tuesday morning.
UCLA was led by Mariel Galdiano, a sophomore from Pearl
City, Hawaii – Andrea Lee’s teammate on the 2016 U.S. Curtis Cup team and her
teammate again in a few weeks at Quaker Ridge -- and Lilia Vu, a junior from
Fountain Valley, Calif. and No. 1 in the Women’s WAGR, both of whom finished in
the group tied for seventh at 1-under 287.
Oh yeah, Galdiano’s UCLA teammate Vu will also be her
teammate on that U.S. Curtis Cup team next month. Galdiano carded a final round
of 1-under 71 while Vu matched par in the final round with a 72.
Patty Tavatanakit, a freshman from Thailand and No. 9 in the
Women’s WAGR, finished in the group tied for 19th at 3-over 291
after a final round of 2-over 74.
Beth Wu, a junior from Diamond Bar, Calif., finished in the
group tied for 38th at 8-over 296 after a final round of 2-over 74
and Clare Legaspi, a sophomore from the Philippines, rounded out the UCLA
lineup, finishing in the group tied for 60th at 304, also with a
final-round 74. Wu and Legaspi took turns posting the UCLA throw-out score, but
then it was the total of that throw-out score that gave the Bruins the
tiebreaker edge, now wasn’t it? Not so bad, after all.
Alabama has two players who will represent the U.S. in the
Curtis Cup and Lauren Stephenson, a junior from Lexington, S.C. and No. 6 in
the Women’s WAGR, and Kristen Gillman, a sophomore from Austin, Texas and No.
11 in the Women’s WAGR, backed up Knight by landing on the same number as
UCLA’s Galdiano and Vu, their future Curtis Cup teammates, in the tie for
seventh at 1-under 287.
Stephenson finished up with a 2-over 74 while Gillman, the
2014 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion as a 16-year-old, matched par in the final
round with a 72.
Angelica Moresco, a freshman from Italy, finished in the
group tied for 67th at 308 after a final-round 308 and Lakareber
Abe, the Tide’s veteran senior from Angleton, Texas, finished alone in 78th
at 314 after a final-round 83.
Yet another Pac-12 team, No. 6 Southern California and its
fabulous four freshmen, had the best team round of the day, a 5-under 283, to
finish third at 16-over 1,168. No. 13 Northwestern, the team that made it all
the way to the Final Match close to home at Rich Harvest Farms a year ago, had
a final round of 3-over 291 to finish fourth at 21-over 1,173.
They met in the semifinals a year ago, Northwestern rallying
to advance to the Final Match. Nobody from that Southern Cal team is on this
young team, but four of Northwestern’s lineup of five played in the final a
year ago.
No. 5 Stanford, the San Francisco Regional winner, finished
fifth at 28-over 1,130. With Lee and fellow sophomore Albane Valenzuela of
Switzerland, No. 4 in the Women’s WAGR and runnerup in last summer’s U.S.
Women’s Amateur, at the top of the lineup, the Cardinal has every intention of
burying the memory of an excruciating loss to Arizona State in last year’s
semifinals.
No. 4 Duke, the ACC champion and winner of the Madison
Regional, finished sixth at 30-over 1,182. All the Blue Devils have is Leona
Maguire, a senior from Ireland and No. 2 in the Women’s WAGR who wants nothing
more than to cap one of the great careers in the history of women’s college
golf by bringing a national championship to Durham, N.C.
There is a toughness about the programs that are back in
match play for the second year in a row, the Southern Cals, the Northwesterns,
the Stanfords and yes, the Kent States. The Flashes finished seventh, carding a
steady final round of 5-over 293 for a 32-over 1,184 total.
Arizona nearly let a spot in the match-play bracket get
away, the Wildcats posting a final round of 305. Baylor caught them with a
solid 2-over 290, led by Gurleen Kaur, a freshman from Houston who fired a
final round of 4-under 68 to join all those Curtis Cuppers tied for seventh at 1-under
287.
Each team sent out all five of its players to play different
holes with the top four scores counting. Each team counted four pars, so they
went out again. This time Pagdanganan, the Wildcats’ leader the whole
tournament, stiffed her approach to five feet at the 12th hole and
converted the birdie try and Yu-Sang Hou, a freshman from Taiwan, buried a long
birdie putt on the 18th hole.
Arizona was alive and Baylor’s season was over, the
Wildcats’ reward for grinding out a match-play berth a quarterfinal match
against Pac-12 champion UCLA.
Tuesday is going to be a day filled with epic matches
between great teams. Northwestern and Stanford, both semifinalists a year ago,
will meet in a quarterfinal. Alabama draws Kent State. The precocious Kids of
Troy square off against Duke, two of the storied programs in the history of
Division I women’s golf.
The winner of UCLA-Arizona gets the winner of
Northwestern-Stanford in Tuesday afternoon’s semifinals. The Alabama-Kent State
winner gets the Southern Cal-Duke winner in the other semifinal.
Only two teams will still be left standing – weather
permitting – when the day is done. It will be pure golf entertainment on The
Golf Channel.
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