Determined Northwestern takes down powerful Stanford to claim its first national championship at La Costa

 

 

   A funny thing happened on the way to the coronation for a Stanford women’s golf team that almost seemed unbeatable.

   Apparently, Northwestern didn’t get the memo. Displaying the kind of grit and determination that can be the great equalizer in golf’s most inscrutable format, the Wildcats, a Big Ten original, outfought Stanford, 3-2, Wednesday in the NCAA Championship’s Final Match at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa’s North Course in Carlsbad, Calif. to capture the program’s first national title.

   The entire Stanford lineup was inside the top 29 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), but rather than be intimidated, Northwestern decided that beating that kind of an opponent would make its accomplishment all the greater.

   “More than doing what people didn’t think you could is this group believing what it thought it could do,” was how Northwestern’s head coach Judy Fletcher, in her 17^th season at the helm in Evanston, told The Golf Channel in summing it up nicely.

   And nobody embodied that kind of determination more than Dianna Lee, a junior from San Diego, Calif., about 20 miles down the coast from Carlsbad.

   For the second day in a row, Lee found herself in the anchor match pitted against an opponent ranked among the top five amateur players in the world.

   In Tuesday’s semifinals, Lee got ahead of Oregon’s Kiara Romero, a sophomore from San Jose, Calif. and No. 3 in the Women’s WAGR, and held on for a 2-up decision that sent the Wildcats to Wednesday’s Final Match.

   There she was again Wednesday.

   When Stanford’s Kelly Xu, a junior from Claremont, Calif. and No. 29 in the Women’s WAGR – the lowest-ranked Cardinal – completed her comeback from 1-down with three holes to play to edge Elise Lee, a freshman from Irvine, Calif. and No. 83 in the Women’s WAGR, 1-up, and even the team score at 2-2, it came down to Dianna Lee against Stanford’s Andrea Revuelta, a freshman from Spain and No. 4 in the Women’s WAGR.

   Much as she had against Romero a day earlier, Dianna Lee picked up back-to-back wins with pars at the 11^th and 12^th holes and suddenly had a 3-up lead with six holes to go.

   Revuelta was one of the hottest players in college golf, capturing the individual title in the ACC Championship at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C. and again in the Norman Regional at the Jimmie Austin OU Golf Golf Club. Her talent is obvious.

   And Revuelta battled back, cutting her deficit to 1-down by winning the 14^th hole with a par and then draining a long birdie putt at 15.

   Revuelta probably got a little too aggressive with her birdie putt from the back of the green at the par-3 16^th hole. Running it four feet by, Revuelta, with a golden opportunity to even the match after Dianna Lee missed her short par putt, couldn’t get her par putt to drop and Dianna Lee remained 1-up.

   And that’s the way the match ended.

   Both reached the green in three at the par-5 finishing hole. For the second straight hole, Dianna Lee had a birdie putt to claim the national championship, but her attempt spun off the left edge to five feet away.

   Revuelta had a pretty good look at birdie, but couldn’t quite match the break and the speed as her putt trailed off to the left.

   Facing a five-footer for the national championship, Dianna Lee just buried it and the celebration ensued for a Northwestern program that has always been among the country’s best, but now has an NCAA Championship trophy to show for it.

   Dianna Lee’s par putt also capped a wildly entertaining Final Match, particularly as the Elise Lee-Xu and Dianna Lee-Revuelta matches played out in the final hour, as David was trying to slay Goliath.

   Anne Walker, the Margot and Mitch Milias Director of Women’s Golf at Stanford, sent her star junior Megha Ganne of Holmdel, N.J. and No. 12 in the Women’s WAGR out first to try to get some early momentum for the Cardinal.

   That decision paid immediate dividends as Ganne rolled to a 5 and 4 victory over Ashley Yun, a sophomore from West Covina, Calif. and No. 67 in the Women’s WAGR.

   But the rest of the Northwestern lineup seemed unbothered by facing what looked like an early 1-0 deficit.

   The Wildcats’ leader, Lauryn Nguyen, a senior from Seattle, Wash. and No. 35 in the Women’s WAGR had a lead on Paula Martin Sampedro, a sophomore from Spain and No. 14 in the Women’s WAGR.

   Martin Sampedro would rally to even the match heading to the 18^th hole, but Nguyen made a birdie on the final hole to claim a 1-up decision. Seniors have a way of doing senior things like that.

   In a battle of freshmen, Northwestern’s Hsin Tai Lin of Taiwan got Meja Ortengren, a Swede who is No. 15 in the Women’s WAGR, in a hole and kept her there, ultimately claiming a 3 and 2 decision.

   Northwestern had a 2-1 lead and was ahead in both of the matches still on the course.

   Xu made dramatic birdie putts at the 16^th and 17^th holes to turn a 1-down deficit to Elise Lee into a 1-up advantage going to the final hole and that’s how it ended.

   That set the stage for the dramatic finish between Dianna Lee and Revuelta. If Dianna Lee was feeling the pressure, she never let it show. She made her par putt, dropped her putter and rushed into the arms of her grateful teammates.

   While the Stanford lineup is comprised of underclassmen, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will all be back.

   Nobody knows better than Walker that winning a national championship isn’t about just talent alone. This Stanford team, arguably one of the best teams in the history of women’s college golf, will have to go down as one of the best women’s college golf teams to not win a national championship.

   It is a pretty long list because golf is hard and winning a national championship in golf is really hard.