Southern California women’s golf coach Andrea Gaston
front-loaded the spring portion of the Trojans’ schedule, sending her young
team out in the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge, the Allstate Sugar Bowl
Intercollegiate and the Bruin Wave Invitational in consecutive weeks.
Then she watched her team grow up right on front of her
eyes. After finishing 10th in an absolutely loaded field at the
Northrop Grumman and second at the Allstate Sugar Bowl, Southern California,
No. 10 in the latest Golfstat rankings,
bested tournament host and crosstown rival UCLA, the No. 1 team in the country,
by eight shots to capture the team title in the Bruin Wave Invitational Tuesday
at a chilly San Luis Obispo Country Club in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Southern Cal grabbed control of tournament with an
opening-round 300 in tough conditions Monday morning and never let go, adding a
298 Monday afternoon and finishing up with another 10-over-par 298 over the
6,323-yard, par-72 San Luis Obispo layout in Tuesday’s final round for a 32-over
896 total.
UCLA, behind individual winner Lilia Vu, a junior from
Fountain Valley, Calif. and the No. 2 player in the Women’s World Amateur Golf
Ranking (WAGR), was the runnerup, the Bruins’ final-round 301 leaving them
eight shots behind Southern Cal at 40-over 904.
No. 4 Stanford finished up with the best team round of the
tournament, a 6-over 294, that left the Cardinal two shots behind UCLA in third
at 906. No. 43 San Diego State, the only non-Pac-12 team among the top six
finishers, had a final-round 303 to take fourth at 913, seven shots behind
Stanford.
No. 18 Washington was another shot behind San Diego State in
fifth at 914 after a final-round 306 with No. 19 Colorado a distant sixth, 14
shots behind the Huskies, in the 16-team field at 928 after posting a 309 in
the final round.
Southern Cal and Stanford were semifinal losers in the NCAA
Championship at Rich Harvest Farms last spring to Northwestern and eventual
champion Arizona State, the third Pac-12 representative in the final four, respectively.
UCLA had dusted all three of those teams in the Pac-12 Championship only to see
its postseason hopes go off the rails in the Lubbock Regional.
This, however, is an almost completely remade Southern Cal
team. But like perennial national contenders in any sport, the Trojans don’t
rebuild, they just reload.
Jennifer Chang, a freshman from Cary, N.C., led the way for
the Trojans, finishing alone in third place at 6-over 222, seven shots behind
Vu. She finished up with a 3-over 75 in a final round that was delayed at the
start by frost.
Alisen Corpuz, a sophomore from Honolulu, Hawaii, was two
shots behind her teammate Chang in a tie for fourth at 8-over 224 after a solid
final round of 2-over 74.
Maybe the key to the victory was the play of Gabi Ruffels, a
freshman from Australia, the daughter of tennis champions who joined the
program at the start of the spring semester, just in time to get thrown into
tournaments with the best players in college golf, with many of the top women’s
amateur players in the world. After opening with a 76, Ruffels had a pair of
steady 3-over 75s to finish tied for seventh at 10-over 226.
Alyaa Abdulghany, the third stud freshman in the Southern
Cal lineup out of Newport Beach, Calif., finished tied for 16th at
229, carding a crucial 2-over 74 in the final round. Rounding out the Southern
Cal lineup was Aiko Leong, a sophomore from Honolulu, Hawaii who finished tied
for 27th at 233 after a final-round 81. Leong’s opening-round 75,
though, nicely picked up Abdulghany, who struggled to an 80. It’s what the good
teams do.
Vu got a little run for her money in the individual chase
from an entirely expected source, Stanford’s Albane Valenzuela, a sophomore
from Switzerland who is No. 5 in the Women’s WAGR.
Vu had led Valenzuela by five going into the final round and
her 3-over 75 was good enough for a 1-under 215 total and a two-shot margin of
victory over Valenzuela, who matched par with a 72 for a 1-over 217 total.
Valenzuela beat Vu in the U.S. Women’s Amateur semifinals last summer at San
Diego Country Club, so Vu got a small bit of revenge. But this rivalry isn’t near
over. There are several more chapters yet to be written.
Sharing fourth place with Southern Cal’s Corpuz was Vu’s
teammate, Mariel Galdiano, a sophomore from Pearl City, Hawaii and the qualifying
medalist in the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Rolling Green Golf Club. Galdiano
was probably disappointed with her final-round 77 that left her tied with
Corpuz at 6-over 222, two shots behind Southern Cal’s Chang, but Galdiano knows
there are bigger battles to come.
Washington’s Sarah Rhee, a junior from Seattle, Wash., finished
up strong with a 1-over 73 to end up alone in sixth at 9-over 225. And San
Diego State’s Sara Kjelker, a freshman from Sweden, shared seventh place with
Southern Cal’s Ruffels at 10-over 226 after carding a final-round 77.
It wouldn’t be a big surprise to see the top three in the
Bruin Wave, Southern Cal, UCLA and Stanford, among the top eight still standing
when it comes time for match play in the NCAA Championship at Karsten Creek
Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla. in May. But there is still a lot of golf to be
played between now and then.
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