The National Golf Invitational, the NIT of college golf, is returning for its third year next spring. Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, will host the event for the third straight year.
Next year, the NGI will again feature a men’s and women’s championship, each with a maximum of 18 teams playing 54 holes of stroke play. Women will play first, May 8-11, with the men the following week, May 15-18.
“I feel like there is real momentum and awareness for the NGI,” said Golfweek‘s Lance Ringler, the tournament director of the NGI. “This will be the third season of this postseason championship and the feedback from the first two have been very good.”
The NGI gives teams on the outside of the NCAA postseason a chance to have a season-ending championship of their own.
There will be a slight change to how teams are invited this year. The NGI will continue to invite teams based on ranking, but also invite teams that are under .500 in ranking order that are outside the number to earn an at-large bid into NCAA regionals.
“Our main focus is continuing to inform the coaches and administrators that this is happening and to prepare for it,” Ringler said.
Last year, the Washington State men and Rutgers women won the second NGI titles. Anthony Delisanti from Valparaiso won the men’s individual title, and Jacksonville State’s Jinger Heath took home the women’s individual crown.
The second edition of the National Golf Invitational is in the books.
Earlier this month, the National Golf Invitational continued to build on its growing tradition at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona. It’s the new NIT of college golf. Every team’s goal is to make it to the NCAA Championship, but if they don’t find a ticket to regional play, there is now something to play in. And this year, the first team out on the men’s side took full advantage.
In the span of just a few weeks, the Cougars have run the gamut of emotions.
In the span of just a few weeks, Washington State has run the gamut of emotions. After the team found itself the first one out of an NCAA Regional berth, the call came for a spot in the National Golf Invitational.
And then, a hard-fought, runaway postseason victory.
“We went from real disappointment, obviously having the stinging feeling of not making it to regionals,” White said. “Now you come down here, and I think these guys, this is what they wanted to do. They wanted to come down and play some really good golf and make a statement. I wouldn’t say that was our prime motivation but they just did what they did all year, they put their heads down and got to work and they played awesome.”
White can’t pinpoint one thing that propelled the Cougars to a 19-shot victory at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona. It was a combination of everything, he said, and it’s not that surprising considering that Washington State went a head-turning 22 under par in the final round.
TCU was second at 22 under for 54 holes and Butler was third at 18 under.
If the Cougars were in the desert to make a statement about what they’re capable of, they did it and then some.
“I felt like considering how we played in the second round, the guys kind of knew that it was out there but I think 22 under was a lot of fun to watch,” White said. “They all came out ready to go and just had one of those days where I guess we saved our best for last and it was a great time to do it.”
Washington State started the day one shot behind second-round leader TCU. They played the first four holes in 9 under par and were off. The Cougars counted a bogey-free 8-under 64 from Sam Renner and a 65 from Pono Yanagi, who missed this tournament last year because he made an individual start in an NCAA Regional.
White and assistant coach Kevin Tucker took a mostly hands-off approach to the final round, letting their players work their own magic.
The night before the final round, the team ate together at Texas Roadhouse. White isn’t sure how much superstition runs through the team, but that night-before meal might be repeated a few times next season.
Past Saturday night’s team dinner, there wasn’t much time for more celebrating. Four of the players White traveled to the NGI are graduating so Washington State will look very different next fall. An NGI win was a validating end for those men.
“Just to come down here and win and I suppose in a fashion like this, I’m just happy for those guys and just a little more validation for all the work they put in and kind of a cool way to go out,” White said.
In the individual race, Valparaiso junior Anthony Delisanti did the bulk of his work in the second round with a 10-under 62 that left him one shot away from the Ak-Chin Southern Dunes course record. That’s not an easy round to follow, but Delisanti posted a closing 68 on Sunday for a one-shot victory over Washington State’s Renner.
“It’s more of a mental test than anything. Just knowing it’s going to be really hard to match that score again the next day,” Delisanti said after the final round. “Obviously it is very difficult no matter what course or tournament or whoever you’re playing against, it’s really tough to do.”
Delisanti opened the tournament with a 1-under 71 before diving to 62 the next day. The biggest difference, he said, was in his putting. Once he learned the speed of the greens, he was on his way.
Delisanti eagled both par 5s on the back nine on the way to a second-round 62, and had a good look for eagle on the short par-4 14th. Posting a round of 59 entered his mind, especially after former Alabama player Nick Dunlap posted 60 at a tournament in the Hamptons in the fall.
“I gave myself a good chance to do it,” Delisanti said. “A lot of things needed to go my way on that back nine of that second round. Either way, it was a really good day.”
The NGI title is Delisanti’s sixth in college golf. The list includes two Missouri Valley Conference titles, which earned him an invitation to NCAA Regionals each of the last two seasons. When Valparaiso played the NGI last year, Delisanti wasn’t eligible considering he had already competed in the NCAA postseason.
Valparaiso head coach David Gring marvels at Delisanti’s body of work three years into his college career, especially when you add the NGI to the list.
“The amount of time that he spends in practice and his preparation, his preparation is meticulous, his work ethic is tremendous,” Gring said. “He’s just a model student-athlete.”
Delisanti credits Gring as well as assistant coach Ron Gring (he works more with the latter on his swing and short game) for moving him forward while at Valparaiso, but also notes he has learned a considerable amount from teammate Caleb VanArragon, who finished his career at NCAA Regionals this spring as the most successful player in program history.
“He’s taught me a ton about how to prepare,” he said. “When I came in as a freshman, I learned so much from him.”
From Ak-Chin Southern Dunes, Delisanti moves on to U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying next month and then a stout schedule of Elite Amateur Series events, including the Sunnehanna Amateur, North and South Amateur and Southern Amateur. He’ll also resume his job in the bag room at Niagara Falls Country Club (site of the Porter Cup), near his Sanborn, New York, home.
TCU players kept the bogeys to a minimum and lit up their scorecards in red at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes. Still, Washington State is only one back.
To motivate his four players competing in the National Golf Invitational this week, TCU head coach Bill Allcorn and assistant coach Cole Buck zeroed in on one detail. Every single shot that each player hits will count. Every birdie, every bogey.
And Allcorn came to like the idea.
“That’s the message we kind of relayed to the guys and they’re all in,” he said. “They’re pulling for each other just like they always do but knowing that every single shot that each person hits is important. I feel like we’re just a really tight group this week, and it’s fun to see that every birdie we make and every bogey we make is really affecting our overall score.”
On Saturday, TCU players kept the bogeys to a minimum and lit up their scorecards in red at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona. The Horned Frogs will take a one-shot lead on Washington State into the final round. TCU is 20 under for 36 holes with two players, Jack Beauchamp and Andrew Petruzelli, in the top 5 individually.
TCU is without its leading scorer Gustav Frimodt at the NGI after the senior competed in an NCAA Regional in Austin, Texas, last week. Allcorn traveled with Frimodt to the tournament and Buck flew the team to Arizona to prepare for the NGI. Allcorn arrived Friday evening, and saw the course for the first time on Saturday.
“I just wanted to be around the guys and support them and just watch a lot of golf,” he said. “It’s been two weeks or so since I’ve been around this group just because of finals and being at regionals so it was good just to be around them again and watch them compete.”
Allcorn praised his men for capitalizing on the longer holes as well as on the par 4s, especially those where TCU players had wedges in their hands. After his first day on site, he likes the look of the place, particularly the greens.
“Greens are really, really good – perfect make speed, so to speak,” he said. “If you do hit one pretty hard, it will get away from you but for the most part, the greens feel really good to make some putts on.”
A postseason opportunity for TCU, which finished the regular season ranked No. 102, is particularly important given the make-up of Allcorn’s team. With three of four players being underclassmen, the NGI became an opportunity for a group of somewhat inexperienced players to get one more tournament under their belt before scattering for the summer.
Washington State, on the other hand, has a little bit different story. The Cougars are making their second consecutive NGI start, but this year four of the players head coach Dustin White traveled to the tournament are graduating.
There’s a little extra motivation attached to Washington State, too, because of the circumstances under which they arrived at the NGI. The Cougars, ranked No. 67 to end the regular season, were the first team out of NCAA regionals, a position that certainly stung an experienced squad. White knows it put a bit of a chip on their collective shoulders.
“They know the opportunity that’s in front of them and I think they obviously want to put an exclamation point on the season and have the seniors go out on a high note,” he said. “We all want that. We want to win but I think at the end of the day they’ve done a really nice job this year of going out and playing golf and sticking to the process and just letting all that stuff kind of take care of itself.”
In the individual race, Valparaiso’s Anthony Delisanti got it to double digits under par on Saturday with a 10-under 62. He’s now 11 under for the tournament, and three ahead of Butler’s Leo Zurovac in second place.
Delisanti, a junior from Sanborn, New York, started on the back nine and eagled both par 5s (Nos. 13 and 16) while adding birdies at Nos. 12 and 14. He made four more birdies on the front nine, which got him within a shot of the Ak-Chin Southern Dunes course record of 61. That number belongs to Steve Saunders, who posted 61 during a round of PGA Tour Q-School.
Wyoming narrowly missed winning the inaugural NGI in 2023. But under veteran coach Joe Jensen, the build continues.
Long after Wyoming had finished its first round at the National Golf Invitational, head coach Joe Jensen was still waiting on the returns. His men had played the first 18 holes at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, in 6 under to land in third, three shots off the lead, but Jensen was waiting on the university to finalize the team GPA.
The number should be around 3.7 – so Jensen’s anticipation was coming from a place of pride, not fear – but this is where the slightly self-deprecating team motto is debunked.
“Quite honestly I have a solid group and I’ve always had,” Jensen said. “If there’s a program slogan that defines us – and we all laugh about it – it’s that we’re better people than we are players and we poke fun at ourselves for that.”
While Jensen’s point is clear, nevertheless here is Wyoming contending for a postseason title – again. The Cowboys played in the inaugural NGI last spring and were part of a five-team horserace in the final round. Wyoming finished second to Texas State by a single shot after having a one-shot lead going into the final hole.
“It was so close and for us to finish second, it was such a great learning experience,” Jensen said. “So fond, fond, fond memories.”
On Friday, each of four teams had the lead at some point during the round: Wyoming, TCU, Butler and Richmond. Ultimately, TCU finished at 9 under for the overnight lead, with Richmond in second at 8 under and Butler in fifth at 4 under.
Washington State’s Preston Bebich and TCU’s Jack Beauchamp lead the individual race at 5 under.
For Wyoming, junior Patrick Azevedo, in the No. 4 spot, birdied half his holes, including five straight from No. 13 to 17. Including Azevedo, Wyoming counted three rounds of 3-under 69 plus a 75 from Davis Seybert in the No. 5 spot, with whom Jensen spent the majority of the day. Leading scorer Jimmy Dales posted an uncharacteristic 77 after a marathon week that included graduation, moving, driving home to Michigan and then flying back to Arizona.
“I’m cautiously pleased with how we played,” said Jensen, who knows from experience how tight this tournament will likely be.
Jensen, who has led Wyoming for 23 seasons, is a guy who loves his job and someone who tries to cultivate a family-like team atmosphere. He jokes that Wyoming leads the nation in parents. But rankings-wise, Wyoming is a team that’s always in the conversation though often a little bit outside at-large selection into NCAA Regionals.
“We’ve been that team that we sit from national ranking 75 to 125,” he said. “So if we’re not going to make it – and we’ve been always real close, real close, real close – for us to be able to come back (to the NGI) is exciting. So you bring the guys back, and it’s just fun to compete.”
Jensen sees the NGI satisfying a tremendous need in college golf, where each year it only gets harder to qualify for the NCAA finals. For his team, playing in a postseason environment could be a difference-maker when it comes to cracking that bubble into an NCAA Regional. That said, Wyoming players are paying little attention to the acronym at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes.
“There’s no way you’re going to tell our kids that this is not the NCAAs or this is not a valued postseason experience,” Jensen said. “That’s what it feels like, and it does so much good for our program.”
Jensen has been in this business long enough to know that there are always tough holes around the corner. He is working hard to coach his players to weather those better and cultivate an environment where his players can play free and with confidence. It has been a commentary within the group.
“To me, this event, I’m using it as a little bit of a springboard into next year because I think we can be competitive next year,” Jensen said. “I’m not afraid to say that.”
That starts, Jensen noted, with being relevant this week. So far, so good.
The 2024 Men’s National Golf Invitational is here.
The 2024 Men’s National Golf Invitational is here.
The NIT of college golf kicked off Friday at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, featuring 10 teams from across the country. The National Golf Invitational is in its second season and features some of the top teams who just missed out on an NCAA Regional berth.
Last year, Texas State won the inaugural NGI. In this year’s field, there are three returning teams: Valparaiso, Washington State and Wyoming
The event is comprised of 54 holes of stroke play before determining the NGI champion.
Here’s a look at the best photos from the 2024 Men’s National Golf Invitational:
Long Island players have a chance to prove themselves at the National Golf Invitational, but no room for error. The Sharks are ready.
Long Island University has no room for error at the National Golf Invitational. Head coach Ben Belfield is traveling only four players to the desert for the postseason, but he reasons that they will approach the week as they always do – which is to say, you never want your men to be counting on a drop score.
“To play well, you have to have four guys play well anyway,” Belfield said. “We’ve got a good field here this week. You play poorly, it is what it is anyway.”
The Sharks will be without their leading scorer Lewis Wright this week at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona. Wright advanced to U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying and was assigned to the qualifier at Walton Heath Golf Club in Surrey, England, to be played May 20. The NGI will be played May 17-19, and Wright, a native Englishman, knew he could never be in both places. And so, with one other player unable to make the trip and another redshirting this season, Long Island is down to four.
Belfield is happy for the postseason opportunity, even if the tournament doesn’t start with the letters NCAA. Missing out on a regional berth was a bit of a blow for Long Island, who only missed winning the Northeast Conference title, and the automatic qualifying spot into regionals, by two shots. Howard University advanced instead.
“We had to get over the disappointment of conference pretty quickly,” Belfield said. “I gave them just a few days of time off and a little bit of time to reset.”
Despite having a very real path into the NCAA finals, Long Island embodies the purpose of this championship. Here’s a mid-major school tucked into the Northeast that put together a head-turning head-to-head record but carries a ranking that leaves them far out of at-large territory.
“To finish in the top 2 seven out of 11 times, I don’t care what schedule you’re playing, that’s pretty good,” Belfield said.
Belfield’s presence at Long Island has ushered in a new era of competitiveness. The Sharks were ranked No. 289 in the country when he arrived, and Long Island was something of a lackluster Northeast program that wasn’t known for much. This season, Belfield’s fifth, the team climbed as high as No. 147 and enters the NGI ranked No. 187 with an impressive won-loss-tie record of 105-32-2 on the season (half of those losses coming in their first spring start after a long, cold winter).
The winter weather isn’t ideal, but Long Island is in golf country. Belfield knows that anyone who knows golf, knows Long Island, from Bethpage to Maidstone. He hopes that a postseason appearance will spread the name even further, but the Sharks’ body of work this season is arguably already doing that, and a postseason berth certainly doesn’t hurt.
“We’ve hopefully changed that around a little bit to now we’re one of the strongest Northeast programs,” Belfield said. “The next stage for us is going listen, can we branch out a little bit regionally? Just kind of show recruits and the world hey, where does this Long Island University golf program come from?”
https://www.instagram.com/p/C6_-lIYPqsy/
Long Island is among a 10-team field teeing it up at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes, with only Valparaiso, Washington State and Wyoming returning. The field will play 54 holes of stroke play over three days to determine the second NGI champion after Texas State won the inaugural tournament last year.
For Long Island, it’s a bit of a celebration.
“It’s an opportunity to experience Arizona, which we haven’t done very much of, and kind of go west,” Belfield said. “Any time you can play in May, how can you ever turn that down?”
It had been a long day in the desert, and Jinger Heath probably had more golf to play. Heath was hitting a few putts, in case a playoff was on the horizon for the individual trophy at the National Golf Invitational. Her Jacksonville State teammates suggested she have a seat in the shade instead.
Heath, the freshman from Hartselle, Alabama, who is famous for needing little (if any) time to warm up, suggested they worry about head coach Robbie Fields instead. Normally she only hits a few drives on the range before going to the first tee, but, “at this one I didn’t want Robbie to freak out on me,” Heath joked.
“So I made sure to get an hour in of warming up.”
Hence her decision to roll a few putts while she waited for her chasers.
Heath posted rounds of 70-72-71 at the National Golf Invitational at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, to reach 3 under. When she came off the golf course Sunday afternoon, Victoria Levy from North Carolina-Wilmington and Kelsey Kim from Santa Clara still had two or three holes to left, and both were hovering around 3 under, too.
Levy, a UNCW who transferred from Central Florida, had been even par through 13 holes before making three birdies and a bogey in her closing hole. Her final-round of 70 left her tied with Heath.
“After the round, Robbie was like, ‘OK, Jinger, if you’re going into a playoff, you need to be prepared,’” Heath said. “I’m like, I am prepared. What have I been doing all semester? He said you need to stay loose. I said I’ve hit 71 shots today, I think I’m loose enough.”
As Fields joked, “I think her lack of stress stressed me out more.”
Coach and player strode to the No. 18 together, the first playoff hole, where Heath drew honors off the tee. Heath aimed for a particular bunker in the background, just like she had all week, and hit the fairway. Her second shot landed a couple feet off the green and she lined up the birdie putt at the left edge.
“Every putt I get over, I tell myself to make it,” she said. “So I was like, make it.”
Remarkably, it hung on the edge before taking “one tumble” into the hole and giving Heath a postseason individual title in her first year of college golf. And in her mind, there’s no better way to win a tournament than with a playoff birdie.
Jacksonville State’s Jinger Heath won the NGI individual title. (Photo by Landon Ringler)
Heath proudly noted that she won the first tournament of her spring season, the North Carolina-Greensboro-hosted Advance Golf Partners Collegiate, and now the last. It’s just some of the middle that didn’t sit so well.
“I definitely didn’t play to my potential,” she said. “I wasn’t very happy.”
Heath had two other top-7 finishes in the spring, but at the Conference USA Championship, she felt like she put two good rounds together before struggling to finish it off. She finished 12th.
An NGI title will make the start of the summer much sweeter, and Heath will go on to play a full schedule of Alabama Golf Association events, a U.S. Women’s Amateur qualifier, the Tennessee Women’s Open and maybe even a few more amateur events.
Heath knows she couldn’t have a better team around her, notably Fields and swing coach Colby Odom, who teaches out of Burningtree Country Club in Decatur, Alabama. When she called Odom before the playoff at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes, he told her, “You’re ready, you just need to walk slow.”
As for Fields, he was walking, maybe not so slowly, right beside Heath for much of the day. He had to take a break after seven holes to bring his own stress levels down, but picked up Heath again on No. 13 and walked the rest of the way with her.
Fields spent three seasons as the women’s golf assistant at East Carolina University before taking over at Jacksonville State in the summer of 2022. He and Heath both attended Hartselle (Alabama) High School, and Heath had been playing out of the same club as a kid where Fields’ dad plays. Thus, Fields had an early scouting report on Heath.
Fields knew he wouldn’t have a spot for her at ECU, so he offered instead to help her get wherever she wanted to go. The summer before her senior year, Fields ended up watching Heath play a tournament at Pinehurst because she was right in the middle of two players he was recruiting. By that time, he had applied for the job at Jacksonville State. He had no interview, but rumors were already swirling.
“She spent about an hour after the round recruiting me,” he said. “She hadn’t committed yet, but she was recruiting hard.”
Fields was hired shortly after and Heath became his first commitment. She’s been a great one, racking up Conference USA Freshman of the Year honors and now an NGI title.
“Seeing her grow up from a little rugrat on the golf course being in everybody’s way to doing something like this and being there with her has been a little extra sentimental, I guess, for some of those reasons,” Fields said.
Heath led her Jacksonville State team to a seventh-place finish in the 10-team NGI field. At the top of the team leaderboard, Rutgers increased its one-shot second-round lead to a three-shot victory over UNCW. Rutgers, which finished the tournament at 13 over, became the second consecutive Big 10 team to win the NGI after Penn State won the inaugural tournament in 2023.
Rutgers head coach Kari Williams couldn’t think of a better way to cap a solid spring than with a postseason victory. Even better, she watched three freshmen fearlessly take the baton from three seniors who have played their last round in the block R.
“Only a couple of teams get to do that all year, get to finish with a win,” Williams said. “It’s really good for us.”
A certain kind of magic happens when the textbooks close at the end of the spring. Suddenly the calendar is open.
A certain kind of magic happens when the textbooks close at the end of the spring. Suddenly the calendar is open. Rutgers head coach Kari Williams didn’t realize what a gamechanger that would be, the postseason experience being something of a new thing for Rutgers.
“It wasn’t rushed, it wasn’t harried in any way, it was actually kind of a luxury to go to practice,” Williams said. “… It’s just been a ton of fun for two weeks.”
Rutgers is one off the lead after two rounds of the National Golf Invitational, having clearly done an effective job of bringing that relaxed vibe from the East Coast all the way to Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona. Then again, every morning at the NGI, country music blares as the 10-team field warms up. There’s ice cream at the end of the day and to Williams, this week feels a little bit like the USGA events and national-team events that her players covet in that celebratory, no-detail-spared kind of way.
“They are playing hard and they’re competing, but I think there’s joy in it that we don’t necessarily see in the regular season when we’re all in the grind of trying to be as ranked as high as we can and do all of those things so we can get the next-best recruit and all of that,” Williams said. “This has been more about the playing of the golf and that’s fun.”
At 8 over for 36 holes, Rutgers trails University of North Carolina-Wilmington by a shot. A few errant swings have been costly, but the Scarlet Knights have figured out how to make some birdies when they need them to make up for mistakes.
A five-shot gap separates Rutgers from Santa Clara in third place at 13 over, with Arkansas State another three shots behind that. Three players are tied for the individual lead at 2 under: Santa Clara’s Kelsey Kim, Jacksonville State’s Jinger Heath, and UNCW’s Minouche Rooijmans.
UNCW head coach Cindy Ho liked how her team performed in the lead, so it won’t be easy for Rutgers to overtake them on Sunday. Ho thinks the potential is there for good theater.
“That back and forth tomorrow, this is why I came here,” she said. “Try to give people some experience but also find a way to reward our team, see if we can win a championship.”
Williams penciled in postseason dates early in the fall – NCAA Regionals and the National Golf Invitational. Rutgers could have been at the latter last season, before a nasty strain of the flu left them severely weakened right before the postseason.
Williams wasn’t sure she would even be able to field a team for last spring’s Big 10 Championship. The Scarlet Knights competed, but Williams ended it there, declining an invitation into the inaugural NGI.
“They’d been vomiting for 10 days and they were going to miss graduation so we did not accept last year,” Williams said. “I had really wanted to, but we just couldn’t get it done.”
To be at the NGI in early May takes commitment. Three players sacrificed commencement for the chance to play one last time with the team: Lucrezia Rossettin, Leigha Devine and Rikke Nordvik (who is Rutgers’ sub this week). Williams points to Devine as one of the most gratifying success stories on the team. Devine didn’t make the lineup as a freshman but has blossomed since. She qualified for the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open and the 2022 U.S. Women’s Amateur.
The rest of Williams’ team is made up of freshmen, and there’s a joy in coaching newcomers that Williams, 53, thinks she’s only fully embraced now that she’s in the back half of her coaching career. They think they know everything while simultaneously never wanting to ask a question because they’re afraid it will be a dumb one.
“They make me laugh,” she said. “They’re hilarious.”
There’s a joy, too, in watching her players tee it up with the best in the country – notably at the Big 10 Championship – with both fight and belief in their hearts. While acknowledging that golf tournaments are three rounds, it’s at the 36-hole mark that Williams often steps back and sees most clearly what her team is made of.
“I love it when they go play against some of the top players in the world and have some success,” Williams said.
Rutgers played a loaded schedule, including Big 10- and Pac-12-heavy fields. They won their own Rutgers Invitational at the beginning of April.
“The thing about winning tournaments – it doesn’t come as often as you think it will,” Williams said.
Regardless, winning helps a lot of things, and it felt especially helpful to Williams on Saturday night that Rutgers had that feeling so fresh in their mind. Ak-Chin Southern Dunes has some scoreable holes, but some stretches that can be costly. Above all, Williams hopes for a good fight on Sunday, from the whole team.
“I hope my seniors spend the day just reveling in the chance to compete as college athletes for one last day and that my freshmen are just out there playing their guts out to try to send these seniors off with a win.”
There may be no bigger confidence boost than 15 team birdies in the opening fives holes of a postseason tournament.
There may be no bigger confidence boost than 15 team birdies in the opening fives holes of a postseason tournament. That was the case for the University of North Carolina-Wilmington in Friday’s first round of the 2024 Women’s National Golf Invitational.
Starting on the back nine, UNCW’s five starters blistered their opening holes at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona. That stretch included only two bogeys. Head coach Cindy Ho felt like it was a little bit of uncharted territory, but she watched proudly as her team continued to go low. The Seahawks capitalized on those short opening holes with dialed-in wedges. Players had paid attention during the practice round, noting where first-round pins would be and they came out prepared.
A handful of holes in, the challenge came in controlling the pace. Ho thinks her players might have gotten a little bit aggressive – perhaps giving birdie putts a little too much speed, in some cases, as the momentum grew and then missing the comebackers. That contributed to a few bigger numbers that brought UNCW back to the field.
“For us, we’re not a team that goes deep that often so part of it was it happened so fast – we always talk about being in our comfort zone, but you can be in your comfort zone by being over par too fast and being under par too fast because you’re trying to learn how to handle the situation,” she said.
Starting at No. 15, the birdies ebbed and a few bogeys began to stack up. UNCW logged a double and a triple on the par-4 18th before making the turn. After being double-digits under par at one point early in the day, UNCW closed the first round at 1 over, one shot ahead of Rutgers.
Santa Clara is third at 5 over and Chattanooga is fourth at 8 over. Chattanooga’s Violeta Fernandez leads the individual race after a 3-under 69.
Ak-Chin Southern Dunes is a fast golf course. There often isn’t a lot of depth to the greens and that puts a premium on decision making. Ho has preached commitment.
“I think we’re learning the golf course right now and just trying to plan the best we can,” Ho said. “We don’t want to play too conservatively, you know you probably need to make some birdies out here. It’s just trying to figure out, let’s not put ourselves where we make too many bogeys or double bogeys. But you can’t start laying up with a 9-iron.”
UNCW won its first start out of the gate this past fall at the Golfweek Fall Challenge in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, and Ho spoke that week of a close group. The Seahawks went on to navigate a demanding schedule, full of head-to-heads against Power 5 teams, and finished tied for second at the CAA Conference Championship.
Ho, a well-respected coach who has been at the helm in Wilmington for more than two decades, last took a team to the postseason in 2019 when the Seahawks earned an Automatic Qualifying spot into NCAA Regionals by winning the CAA title.
After late-spring play was canceled because of COVID in 2020, UNCW was knocked out of a second consecutive chance at the postseason in 2021 when two players tested positive for COVID.
Fast forward to this spring, and UNCW is making its NGI debut, albeit without a couple of its usual starters from this season. Nicole Adam, a transfer from North Carolina, stayed behind to take part in UNCW’s graduation ceremony, having missed her high school graduation in the spring of 2020 because of COVID. (Mallory Fobes, now a fifth-year senior, decided to travel with the team and skip graduation). Malu Brinker, from Germany, is missing from the lineup due to a back injury.
Credit to the veteran coach Ho for recognizing that the NGI could be the perfect opportunity to begin transitioning to what next year’s Seahawk lineup will look like by getting some new players into the fold.
“Here’s the thing: To me I felt like this was the perfect time to move everybody up,” she said.
“What a great experience for them to play in a championship, play for the team and then everyone gets some more experience.”
A year ago, Penn State won the inaugural NGI without its top player, Mathilde Delavallade, in the lineup because she had been invited to an NCAA Regional and thus was prohibited from teeing it up in the NGI. That’s not lost on Ho.
“I think it was a no-brainer for us as long as we had people who were OK making the trip,” she said of this new postseason opportunity. “These guys are all hungry and they’re excited so let’s go out there and compete best you can.”
And as they demonstrated on Friday, the Seahawks’ best would be a lot for any team to handle.
