Category: Women

Photos: La Costa to open Gil Hanse-renovated North Course in June after NCAA Championships

Check out the photos of the renovated host site for the 2024 men’s and women’s NCAA Championships.

Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California, has announced June 1 as the full reopening date of its Championship Course, which has been rebranded the North Course after an extensive renovation by the architectural team of Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner.

The opening to resort guests and members follows the NCAA Division I Women’s (May 17-22) and Men’s (May 24-29) Championships on the North Course. The layout is also slated to host those college championships in 2025 and 2026.

Hanse and Wagner implemented significant changes to the North layout. Among the renovations: A new drivable par-4 11th was built, the green of the par-3 16th was repositioned in a fashion reminiscent of Augusta National Golf Club’s No. 12, and the par-5 18th was stretched to more than 600 yards with water on both sides of the fairway.

La Costa in California
Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California (Courtesy of Omni La Costa Resort and Spa)

The revised layout will feature six sets of tees that play from 4,500 to 7,500 yards. Other changes include transitioning irrigation lines that will continue to use reclaimed water, the removal of several man-made ponds and the reintroduction of natural barrancas that feature drought-tolerant and native species of plants.

“The North Course is now positioned to return to its stature as one of the top venues for championship golf in Southern California,” Hanse said in a media release announcing the opening date and completion of work. “We were able to combine a respect for the natural contours, landforms and vegetation with an emphasis on strategic design. This combination of beauty and interest should prove enjoyable for everyday play by members and resort guests, while asking compelling questions to be answered by the best players in the world during championship events.”

Originally designed by Dick Wilson and opened in 1965, the North layout had been renovated previously several times. It was part of a resort with a tournament pedigree that includes hosting the PGA Tour’s Mercedes Championship from 1969 to 1998, the inaugural WGC-Accenture Match Play in 1999 and the LPGA’s Kia Classic in 2010 and 2012.

The resort also announced its Legends Course has been rebranded to South Course. Both the North and South were the courses’ original names before being changed to Champions and Legends.

La Costa in California
A renovated guest room at Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California (Courtesy of Omni La Costa Resort and Spa)

The resort also will feature a reimagined practice facility designed by Beau Welling that will include Toptracer technology. It’s all part of an extensive multi-year renovation to the entire resort that stretches from guest rooms and villas to the spa, lobby bar and meeting spaces.

“Working with the ‘best of the best’ course architects like Gil Hanse and his design team is a prime example of our continued commitment and investment to be in the highest echelons of U.S. golf destinations,” the resort’s managing director, Craig Martin, said in the media release. “This transformation signals a full return to championship glory at Omni La Costa and joins the now-completed renovation of the property as a whole resulting in an elevated experience for our members and resort guests to enjoy for decades to come.”

Check out the photos of the course and resort, many of them shot by Patrick Koenig, who recently broke the record for most courses played in a year.

Augusta National Women’s Amateur champ Lottie Woad chooses LPGA major over ACCs

Woad, ranked No. 4 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, hasn’t finished outside the top 8 in college golf this season.

Lottie Woad faced a tough decision in the aftermath of her Augusta National Women’s Amateur. The victory comes with special invitations to four major championships, including next week’s Chevron Championship, which overlaps the ACC Championship.

Woad, a 20-year-old sophomore at Florida State, has opted to make her major championship debut at the Chevron April 18-21 at The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas, in what will be her first LPGA start.

“I wasn’t really going to turn down a major,” said Woad, who had full support form her Seminole coaches.

The Englishwoman delivered a finish for the ages on Saturday in the final round at Augusta National, making birdie on three of the last four holes to beat USC’s Bailey Shoemaker by one stroke.

“If I’d been told before this week that I’d be two back with four to play, I would have been like, yeah, perfect, that sounds great,” said Woad. “To be in the mix on the back nine at Augusta is something that everyone dreams about.”

Woad, ranked No. 4 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, hasn’t finished outside the top 8 in college golf this season, with co-medalist honors at the Annika Intercollegiate.

With her parents and English national coach/caddie back home in England, Woad will be on her own in Texas, though former FSU player Frida Kinhult did have an extra room in her Airbnb. Woad is in the process of trying to find a local caddie for next week.

On Sunday at Augusta, Woad met Nancy Lopez and Tom Watson as she handed out awards at the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals. She also met 2016 Masters champ Danny Willett for the first time in the clubhouse.

It’s back to class for Woad this week in Tallahassee. On Tuesday night, she’ll throw out the first pitch in the sold-out FSU vs. Florida game on ESPN2. While Woad hasn’t played baseball, she did play cricket back home in England.

World No. 1 Nelly Korda headlines the field at Chevron after winning her fourth consecutive start on Sunday at the T-Mobile Match Play. Korda is the first American to win four consecutive starts on the LPGA since Nancy Lopez won five consecutive starts in 1978.

Woad received a warm welcome-home reception when she returned to Tallahassee. Kinhult made cupcakes. Check out the photos from the surprise gathering:

 

High Point gets a Big South tuneup with Golfweek/Any Given Tuesday title at Caledonia

Late-round energy gave the Panthers a three-shot victory at the Golfweek/Any Given Tuesday Collegiate.

Lyndsey Hunnell has devised a way to stave off late-round fatigue. It’s called the Bonus Bev, and her High Point women only earn the reward by playing the final five holes of a competitive round in even par or better.

“Sometimes you’ll kind of see teams coast off for the last couple holes, getting tired, but these girls really grind their ball the last five and that’s kind of when they moved up the leaderboard a little bit more,” Hunnell said.

Late-round energy gave the Panthers a three-shot victory at the Golfweek/Any Given Tuesday Collegiate. Wednesday’s final round was wiped when heavy downpours made the course unplayable and the tournament reverted to 36-hole scores. High Point had played the first two rounds in 6 over, which left them ahead of runner-up Florida Gulf Coast with Cal Poly in third another five shots back.

Scores: Golfweek/Any Given Tuesday Collegiate

In the second round, High Point played the closing holes in 4 under, which gave them a big boost. (Players nicknamed the game Bonus Bev because often, they’ll use their reward on a drink at Starbucks.)

Hunnell had also prepared her players for the nasty conditions they would likely see in the final round – big gusts and downpours. Bogeys would be part of the game.

“It wasn’t going to be perfect conditions out there and just to kind of roll with what we could and just kind of embrace what we had in front of us because everyone else had to lay in the same conditions,” she told them. Ultimately, of course, those third-round scores were wiped.

Hunnell, who played collegiately for Virginia before using a fifth-year at Xavier, is in her second year coaching at High Point after spending the past three seasons as an assistant coach at Campbell. In her last year at Campbell, that team won a fall event at Caledonia, so even though High Point had not played in this event before, the team benefited from savvy coaching.

“I knew the course pretty well and that it’s a little bit shorter,” she said. “We practiced a lot more wedges last week and really knowing our numbers. . . . I knew it was going to set up well for my team and that’s why we were really excited we were going to get to go.”

So far this season, High Point has won once and finished inside the top 5 another six times. Hunnell brought in three new players this year who made an immediate impact in the lineup. That includes fifth-year Wake Forest transfer Julia McLaughlin and Anna Howerton, a freshman from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who led High Point at Caledonia with a third-place finish individually at 1 under. She finished two shots behind individual medalist Hannah Karg of Coastal Carolina.

Hannah Karg of Coastal Carolina won the individual title at Caledonia. (Golfweek photo)
Hannah Karg of Coastal Carolina won the individual title at Caledonia. (Golfweek photo)

“I think it’s helped the girls to know I’m bringing in fresh blood and you have to earn your spot, you can’t just expect to keep it year to year,” she said. “I think that’s kind of been the vibe and they have all such great team chemistry and they get along so well.”

In fact, the players at home typically set an alarm so they can send off a team good-luck text before the start of a round.

High Point needs a team firing on all cylinders heading into the Big South Conference Championship in two weeks. To get through a bit of a slump recently, Hunnell gathered her team to re-evaluate their progress.

“I showed them their goals they had set at the beginning of the spring and showed them where they were at so I think that kind of sparked a little bit of their drive, and they’ve been working really hard before this tournament,” she said.

Campbell has always been the powerhouse in the Big South, having won the last seven straight league titles (and the Automatic Qualifying spot into NCAA Regionals that goes with that), but Campbell made the move to the CAA before this season.

Last spring, High Point lost to the Camels in the final match. High Point is the heir apparent to Campbell, but Hunnell knows the Panthers need to walk into that spot with confidence.

“We’ve got a chip on our shoulder there,” she said. “We’ve been in contention and we know what it feels like and we know what to expect.”

Stanford’s Rachel Heck pens first-person essay to explain why she won’t go pro

“After a couple of years of painful deliberation, I have come to realize that I do not want to play professional golf.”

This spring, after Rachel Heck completes her senior year at Stanford, she’ll put her golf clubs away and take on an internship in private equity. She’ll also be pinned as a Lieutenant of the United States Air Force. Heck explained her reasons for not turning professional in a first-person essay on nolayingup.com.

“I was strongly considering attributing my decision to my injuries,” wrote Heck, who has grappled with several in recent years. “It is true that even if I wanted to, I do not know if my body would hold up on tour. But frankly, after a couple of years of painful deliberation, I have come to realize that I do not want to play professional golf.

“I do not want a life on the road and in the public eye. I no longer dream of the U.S. Open trophies and the Hall of Fame. And I realize now that these dreams were never what my dad intended when he first put a club in my hand.”

Heck qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open at age 15 and, as a hotshot junior, suffered a back injury that left her sidelined from the game. Without golf, she felt lost, and during a period of darkness, decided that she wanted to pursue the Air Force ROTC to find something more. Heck’s parents told her she was crazy, but she persisted.

As a freshman at Stanford, with dreams of playing on the LPGA and serving in the Air Force in full throttle, Heck set an NCAA scoring record (69.72) en route to sweeping the postseason.

Heck won six times in nine starts in 2021, including her last five events. She became the third player in NCAA history to sweep the postseason, winning the Pac-12 Championship, NCAA regionals and nationals. She posted 15 of 25 rounds in the 60s, including 12 consecutive.

But, as her college career progressed, more injuries followed. While Heck intends to pass on the professional life, she does plan to continue to play amateur golf, following a similar path set by Wake Forest grad Emilia Migliaccio.

“I have grappled with anger, hope, depression, joy, and everything in between,” Heck wrote, “but amid each trial in which I so desperately sought the clarity of a deeper meaning, God always showed me the next step. Right now, the next step is not professional golf.”

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With a pair of freshmen leading the way, Texas women’s golf team is circling the waters again

Farah O’Keefe and Lauren Kim have emerged as anchors of a deep Longhorns roster.

A mixture of phenomenal freshmen and savvy veterans has the Texas women’s golf team poised for another run at an NCAA Championship berth in the spring.

But first, head coach Ryan Murphy wants to end the fall semester on a high note at this weekend’s power-packed Stanford Invitational in California, where the top-ranked Cardinal will play host to several ranked squads, including the No. 5 Longhorns.

“I’m happy with what we’ve done so far this semester, and hopefully we can have a good one at Stanford,” said Murphy, who’s served as the women’s head coach since 2014. “We have some depth on our team, and we’ve had some great performances.”

Those performances start with a pair of freshmen in Farah O’Keefe and Lauren Kim, who have emerged as anchors of a deep roster. Along with Westlake graduate and senior Bentley Cotton, O’Keefe and Kim have competed in all three of the fall tournaments so far. Selina Liao, Cindy Hsu and Bohyun Park have also filled a spot in the lineup this fall.

O’Keefe’s quick emergence won’t surprise local golf fans. The Anderson graduate won an individual state championship with the Trojans while leading them to a Class 5A team title in 2022, and she hasn’t slowed down since joining the Longhorns.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CyitYJWssV1/

O’Keefe opened her collegiate career with a pair of top-five finishes and was recently named the Big 12 women’s golfer of the month. She showed her poise during a runner-up finish at the Windy City Classic in Chicago earlier this month, when she tied Texas’ individual 18-hole scoring record with an 8-under-par 64 in the first round. O’Keefe’s final score of 9-under 207 was the seventh-best 54-hole score in program history.

Murphy, who served as an assistant for the UT men’s team during current PGA star Jordan Spieth’s time with the program, credited O’Keefe for having a similar mental toughness.

“It does remind me of Jordan a little bit. It’s next level, for sure,” Murphy said. “That head on her shoulders is way past her age, I would say. And that’s a testament to her parents. I would say they’ve taught her some really great things. Her disposition on the golf course is right where you want it. She’s studied optimal performance states.”

And how about her game?

“Well, she’s got nice power, and she’s got tremendous hands on and around the greens,” Murphy said.

At last week’s Jackson T. Stephens Cup at Trinity Forest Golf Club in Dallas, Kim stepped into the spotlight to win a four-hole playoff and claim individual honors. A Canadian from British Columbia, she birdied 17 and 18 in round three to force a playoff at 11-under-par with Texas A&M’s Adela Cernousek.

“She (Kim) is just rock-solid in every category, and is very, very competitive,” Murphy said. “She hits it ridiculously straight on a regular basis, and I would say the best part of her game is her approach shots. She’s probably the best on our team coming in on her approach shots from the fairway. She just doesn’t have any flaws in her game.”

The fast ascendency of freshmen like O’Keefe and Kim testifies to the increasingly early development of golfers, said Murphy, whose coaching career began shortly after his professional career ended in 2005. Both Kim and O’Keefe have already competed in the U.S. Women’s Open, which is the pinnacle of professional golf for women in the U.S.

“They’ve seen the highest level of golf you can see,” he said. “Both in the U.S. Open, that was for me a little bit surreal. That was crazy. Freshmen, they’re entering college now more seasoned than ever.”

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As head coach John Wurzer orchestrates a steady build, Pomona-Pitzer claims a calculated Golfweek D3 October Classic win

Pomona-Pitzer outscored the field on the par 5s at Baytowne Golf Club, and it helped deliver the title at the Golfweek October Classic.

It isn’t always possible to put a finger on where, exactly, a winning team found its edge. In the case of Pomona-Pitzer, however, connecting the dots is relatively easy.

After winning the Golfweek D3 October Classic on Tuesday, what head coach John Wurzer calls the biggest regular-season victory in program history, Wurzer could pretty confidently point to the long holes at Baytowne Golf Links in Sandestin, Florida. He coaches a team of longer-than-average players, and so Wurzer had been chewing on par-5 scoring for a while.

“The first day, they were 9 under on the par 5s,” Wurzer said. “It was, for us, a really amazing performance on those holes and it really kind of separated us the first day.”

For the week, Pomona-Pitzer played the par 5s in 11 under. Carnegie Melon, which finished runner-up to the Sagehens, played them in 4 over. Pomona-Pitzer finished 54 holes at 15 over, 18 shots ahead of Carnegie Melon, the team that had topped Pomona-Pitzer two weeks ago at the Fall Preview.

That’s easy math, and it’s not like Wurzer had intricate, detailed plans for his players – though they could have easily followed them if he did.

Wurzer, in his sixth season as the head coach of Pomona-Pitzer, notes that his program attracts an Ivy League-kind of athlete. “They have to be amazing students, so they’re poised, they’re smart, they’re aware, they’re very coachable,” he said.

It’s a unique setup back home in Claremont, California, where Pomona College and Pitzer College, two separate institutions that combine into one athletic program, help comprise the “5Cs” that also include Scripps College, Claremont McKenna College and Harvey Mudd College. The latter three compete in the combined Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletic program.

Pomona-Pitzer competes in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference along with perennial powerhouse programs Redlands and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. The area is loaded with talent, to the point that Wurzer said his team never competes in a tournament where there isn’t at least a top-8 school in the field. The proverbial bar is no further than two stout par 5s away. That’s the distance to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, which won the 2018 D3 women’s golf title.

“Our main rival for golf is 1,000 yards away, on the same campus,” Wurzer said.

When Wurzer arrived in Claremont six years ago, Pomona-Pitzer was a talented program that had never won the conference title. The Sagehens won it the past two years. He has orchestrated a slow build, and so far this season, his team has won twice and finished runner-up twice.

“For us, it was really about getting competition,” he said of two trips east to start the fall. “We wanted to come to this event because it was really one of the two best regular-season events in the country – in the fall for sure.”

At the Golfweek event, Pomona-Pitzer drew senior leadership from Katelyn Vo, who led the team with a runner-up finish individually. Vo, at 1 over, was three behind individual medalist Sydney Kuo of Washington University-St. Louis.

Sydney Kuo, Washington University-St. Louis
Sydney Kuo, Washington University-St. Louis

Jessica Mason (fourth) and Emily Chang (T5) also bring back experience, while freshmen Eunice Yi and Rachel LeMay have played the whole fall season with the Sagehens.

“We’ve just built toward rising to the level of competition that’s in our conference and they set the bar and we’ve just tried to kind of reach it and surpass it,” Wurzer said. “Wins like this just show that we have players that have bought in and they’re exceptionally talented. The teams in our conference have pushed us to be great because the only way we accomplish goals that we set is to beat them first and foremost.”

Wurzer knows as well as any college coach that success does not happen overnight. A native of Southern California, his history in the game is layered with teaching, program-building and simply observing at every level.

Wurzer founded the Torrance High School girls golf program in 2000 and coached the team to its first of many California Interscholastic Federation State Girls Golf titles in 2005. Program alumni include Angela Park, the 2007 LPGA Rookie of the Year, plus LPGA players Jane Rah, Jenny Shin and Demi Runas.

Wurzer gained notice for what he was doing in high school golf, mostly as his players were recruited to top schools (or went straight to professional golf), and he spent four years as the Director of Golf Operations at USC, learning under then-head coaches Chris Zambri and Andrea Gaston.

After an assistant coaching stint at Long Beach State, his alma mater, Wurzer found a head-coaching opportunity at Pomona-Pitzer, where he leads the men’s and women’s teams.

After so many years in a pocket of high-caliber golf, Wurzer’s knowledge is deep. He has watched notable careers unfold in all directions – from Lizette Salas, for example, to Stewart Hagestad.

“I’ve seen a lot and it just allows me to have perspective and coach these players, recruit very differently but coach a very similar way and use a lot of those lessons I learned along the way from SC and when I was at Long Beach State,” he said.

As his time at Pomona-Pitzer is showing, the ultimate success of a program comes down to the players. But the identity? That’s built quietly, and painstakingly, by the coach.

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This Pennsylvania university is adding women’s golf as a varsity sport starting in 2024

More opportunities in women’s college golf have opened up.

More opportunities in women’s college golf have opened up.

On Monday, Saint Joseph’s University, located in Philadelphia, announced the addition of women’s golf as a varsity sport for the Hawks. The team will begin competing fall of 2024.

“We are extremely excited to announce the addition of one of the most popular sports for high school girls and college women with the addition of women’s golf,” Vice President and Director of Athletics Jill Bodensteiner said in a post on the university’s website. “During my time on Hawk Hill, I have had more inquiries about starting a women’s golf program than any other sport. I am delighted to offer additional participation opportunities for female student-athletes to receive a Jesuit education at this great institution.”

Saint Joseph’s officials indicated the search for a head coach will begin soon and that the women’s team will need placement in a conference. St. Joe’s competes in the Atlantic 10 in all other sports.

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Revenge at the Raven: Flagler College wins Golfweek D2 Fall Invitational with authority

“It definitely makes it extra special knowing how we felt to lose last year being so close,” Flagler coach Santiago Cavanagh said.

This time last year, the Flagler College team van was headed east across Florida, from Destin back home to St. Augustine, with the bitter taste of a close call. Santiago Cavanagh’s team loves competing at the Raven Golf Club at Sandestin, but a one-shot loss to Nova Southeastern did not sit well.

On Tuesday, the results swung hard the other way, with Flagler College riding high on a 21-shot victory for that trip back east.

“It definitely makes it extra special knowing how we felt to lose last year being so close,” Cavanagh said. “This is one of our favorite events, we love the golf course, it’s challenging. The whole week is very special. I know how much the girls wanted to win this week.”

In Flagler’s second start of the fall season, the team claimed the Golfweek Division II Fall Invitational title by going 5 over at the Raven Golf Club. The Saints built an eight-shot lead in the first round and never looked back, finishing 21 shots ahead of runner-up Rogers State.

Flagler set a new program record for lowest 54-hole score and also broke the record for lowest round with their final-round 5-under 279.

“The golf course was in great shape, just like it was last year,” Cavanagh said. “The greens were just a little bit softer than last year and so that made it better. But the first days, it was extremely windy. We had about 15 to 20 mph wind both days. Finally, today was a little bit less, probably 8 to 12 so it was a little more manageable. But the golf course is awesome.”

Individually, Stella Jelinek, a sophomore from Germany, finished 54 holes at 4 under to medal by five shots over Lydia Sitorus of Rogers State and Yuliana Yapur of Texas A&M International. Jelinek opened the week with a 2-under 69 but had a tough round on Day 2 and backed up to 74. On Tuesday, she posted her first collegiate bogey-free round, a 5-under 66, and calmly pulled away.

“She wanted to win it really bad. She didn’t have the round she wanted yesterday and she started behind today,” Cavanagh said. “She stayed calm all day. It was a very close fight until the end, she just kept playing her game. When you make five birdies and no bogeys, you’re going to close the gap for sure.”

Flagler's Stella Jelinek (Golfweek photo)
Flagler’s Stella Jelinek

After last year’s close call at the Golfweek event, Flagler rallied to win its home event three weeks later. Last spring, the Saints were second in the Peach Belt Conference Championship and advanced to an NCAA Division II Super Regional, where their season ended.

The start to this season was a little jarring as Flagler arrived at the NCAA D2 South Region Preview at Cleveland Country Club in Cleveland, Tennessee, ready to start a strong fall campaign and finished ninth out of 17 teams.

“We went up there feeling very good and not having the finish you want, it’s like a bucket of cold water,” Cavanagh said.

The disappointing opener motivated his team to come home, work harder and prepare smarter for the next tournament – not a hard task considering how much Cavanagh’s players love this stop on the schedule.

Cavanagh looks down this year’s lineup and likes the mix of experience and new blood he sees. It’s a long, tough road the rest of the year, with Flagler’s own Fall Slam and the Rollins-hosted National Championship Fall Preview – to be played at Orange County National in Orlando, Florida – on tap for later this month.

“We’re going one tournament at a time and I definitely have a team that I’m not surprised when I see these numbers,” he said.

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Pepperdine brings back talented core for title defense at Golfweek Red Sky Challenge

Pepperdine is on a roll that dates to April. The Waves have won five of their last six starts, with the latest victory coming in familiar territory.

Pepperdine is on a roll that dates to April. The Waves have won five of their last six starts, with the latest victory coming in familiar territory.

The Golfweek Red Sky Challenge is the team’s second start this fall and second win. In Pepperdine’s title defense at the scenic layout, nestled into the mountains at more than 8,000 feet in Wolcott, Colo., and its fifth victory here overall in the tournament’s 13-year history, the Waves were even par for 54 holes to edge New Mexico State by 10 shots.

“We love playing at beautiful Red Sky and are excited to start the season with two double-digit wins,” head coach Laurie Gibbs said.

Pepperdine’s core of Lion Higo, Kaleiya Romero, Lauren Gomez and Jeneath Wong all finished in the top 12 at Red Sky. KaYee Kwok brought in a T-32 finish. Familiarity is at work in many ways as Pepperdine, which was ranked No. 15 in Golfweek’s preseason rankings, continues to find its way to the top of leaderboards.

A year ago at Red Sky, Gibbs predicted that it could be an exciting year for the Waves. That was before Wong, a talented Australian player, joined the team. She finished in the top 10 four times in the spring.

After winning the West Coast Conference Championship and the NCAA San Antonio Regional, Pepperdine made national championship match play, losing a close quarterfinal match against top-seeded Stanford.

A year ago when Pepperdine won this tournament, the Waves went 18 under to do so. Only UCLA had ever gone lower in event history, reaching 32 under to win in 2018. Next year, the Golfweek Red Sky Challenge field will return to 20 teams, and with the .500 rule debuting in women’s golf, more top-25 teams could find their way to the mountains.

Red Sky is a tricky yet rewarding venue and bared its teeth this week with the help of slick, smooth greens and weather conditions.

“The course was in great shape and greens were rolling at 12.5,” Gibbs said. “The winds picked up mid-round today and hitting greens got to be challenging. Being above the hole on a downhill putt was difficult.”

The challenge makes Alison Gastelum, a New Mexico State senior, like Red Sky that much more. Gastelum won the individual title at 7 under after a final-round 68.

Alison Gastelum, New Mexico State
Alison Gastelum, New Mexico State (Golfweek photo)

“Just (where) it is and how it plays is definitely unique in comparison to a lot of other courses,” she said. “It was definitely more challenging this year than I remember too. The greens were fast, very, very fast, but the course was in great conditions too so it was just a matter of your short game to be up there and just making some putts, right?”

Gastelum did the work, making as many birdies – 13 – as any player in the field. Gastelum had competition for the top spot on the leaderboard throughout the day with Madison Holmes of Central Arkansas. Holmes made a hole-in-one on the par-3 ninth on her way to a closing 70, but Gastelum played the back nine in 2 under to overtake her by two shots.

The Golfweek Red Sky Challenge is Gastelum’s first college title. She called it a “dream come true.”

“Making this my first one at the course that I like, just with my teammates and everybody that was around me at this time,” she said.

New Mexico State has already had a busy fall, having traveled to the Golfweek Fall Challenge in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, and the Badger Invitational in Madison, Wisconsin. Gastelum placed fifth on the team in each of those starts as she struggled with her swing and her mental game.

“This is a very challenging sport, especially mentally, and I know how it works,” she said. “I’ve been playing golf since I was 5 years old so I know how it works, I know that sometimes you can have really, really bad rounds and sometimes you can have probably the best rounds of your life.”

Gastelum concentrated on bringing the game she had to Red Sky and credits her win to a better mentality.

After all, it’s tough to be negative against such a beautiful backdrop.

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Familiarity leads North Carolina-Wilmington to victory at Golfweek Fall Challenge

“It was an incredible battle,” UNCW head coach Cindy Ho said of a final-round horserace with Lipscomb.

So much was familiar in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, this week. North Carolina-Wilmington often starts its season this way – by making the drive a couple hours south down the coast to the Golfweek Fall Challenge at Caledonia Golf Club.

“This is the type of grass we play in, this is a very similar style golf course that we might face here,” said head coach Cindy Ho. “I love staying in the villas because it’s a great first team bonding kind of situation where especially if I had new players, they get to know each other.”

Not much getting-to-know-each-other is required for this UNCW team, which features several players from last season, so there’s familiarity in that respect too.

The week only diverged from familiar after Mallory Fobes holed the final putt on Caledonia’s daunting finishing hole, featuring a tight landing zone off the tee and an approach over water. When Fobes made bogey there to cap off a closing 69, it left UNCW a shot ahead of Lipscomb, with their first victory in the Golfweek Fall Challenge after four appearances.

Scoring: Golfweek Fall Challenge

“It was an incredible battle,” Ho said of a final-round horserace with Lipscomb. “At this time of year, you’re learning about your kids, you can’t simulate pressure but this is how you make it real. . . . Trying to compete, trying to win under that kind of pressure, pulling off shots – especially finishing on 18. Eighteen has had our number.”

On Tuesday, by the time UNCW – playing in the final groups with Lipscomb and Charleston Southern – approached the final hole, there were several groups stacked on the tee. Most of Ho’s players draw the ball, which means they can’t hit driver off the tee at that 377-yard par 4. That set up many more decisions down the hole, like where to aim on the approach and how much the wind would affect both line and club choice.

UNCW ended up playing the hole, the toughest for the field, in 1 over.

Ho jokes that checking Golfstat constantly during a round is too much for her blood pressure, but on the final day at Caledonia, a comment from Lipscomb head coach Shannon O’Brien about how well UNCW was playing led Ho to open up live scoring anyway.

It’s just not No. 18 that’s a challenge at Caledonia, but also the three holes leading up to it. Ho was proud of the way that her players rose to the occasion, especially fifth-year senior Fobes and redshirt sophomore Victoria Levy, who finished 1-2 on the individual leaderboard. Fobes was 4 under for the week and Levy, along with New Mexico State’s Emma Bunch, was 2 under.

Fobes is playing her COVID year, and Ho can’t think of a better way for it to start than with an individual title – the first of her career. It’s fitting for a player who owns many of UNCW’s program scoring records to now own some hardware.

“I’m just so proud of her, I’m so happy for her that she’s done so much work on her game,” Ho said. “You do so much work and you hope but you can’t control anybody else’s game. You can’t control your opponents in golf. The only thing you can control is your game, your emotions, how you react to it. She did the work and she was rewarded for it this time.”

Levy also shined as the coach’s pick in the lineup. Levy has had pneumonia and bronchitis almost from the moment she stepped on campus this fall and as a result has hit very few shots leading up to the first tournament. Coming down the stretch on Tuesday, she had a chip-in eagle on No. 15 then birdied No. 16 with a downhill, curling left-to-right foot putt to an unfamiliar right hole location.

Annika Saidleman, playing in the No. 3 position to start the week, brought in a final-round 72 and finished T-28 individually. Saidleman wasn’t in the UNCW lineup last year but was part of the team.

As Ho said, it takes everyone to win over three days.

“This group is really close, and I love that for them,” Ho said, noting how hard they celebrated Fobes’ individual win at the end of the day. “They’re genuinely happy for a person that won, not just about themselves, whether they played good or bad.”

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