No. 2 Stanford women’s golf traveled to Sewailo Golf Club in Tucson, Arizona this past Monday through Wednesday to participate in the Pac-12 Championships. The Cardinal finished in third place, just one shot behind No. 21 Colorado, and 22 shots behind winner UCLA, which finished at an impressive 2-under as a team over the 54-hole event.
The Cardinal saved their best round for last, going just 2-over on the final 18 for a team score of 290, but it was not enough to mount a comeback, as the first two rounds of 296 (8-over) and 298 (10-over) were too big of a hole to climb out of. No. 3 UCLA dominated from start to finish, tallying the lowest score in each of the three rounds of play.
The Bruins victory was led by two strong individual performances, as sophomore Lilia Vu and freshman Mariel Galdiano took first and second place, respectively. Vu did not post a round over par at the par-72 track, going 71-66-72 en route to a 7-under finish, six shots better than second place. Galdiano finished strong, carding rounds of 73-73-69 to finish at 1-under. The two Bruins were the only players under par for the tournament.
Vu and Galdiano were boosted by their ability to make birdies, ending the event first and second in the field in number of birdies, with 14 and 13, respectively.
As for the Cardinal, freshman Andrea Lee followed Vu and Galdiano, claiming third place in a two-way tie with Arizona State sophomore Linnea Strom. Lee’s best score came in round two, as she posted a 2-under 70. Lee and Strom finished at 1-over for the three days.
Stanford freshman Albane Valenzuela posted a top-15 finish, tying for 11th at 6-over, while junior Shannon Aubert was also in the top 20, posting a strong final round score of 1-under to climb 10 spots up the leaderboard relative to her position after day two.
As for the team results, after UCLA, Colorado and Stanford, 14th-ranked Arizona came in fourth at 23-over, seventh-ranked USC took fifth with a score of 30-over, narrowly edging out fifth-ranked Arizona State, which shot 31-over for sixth place.
The Cardinal are back in action May 8-10 for the NCAA Regional Championships. The NCAA Regionals have 72 teams and are played at four different courses in Texas, New Mexico, Georgia and Ohio. The draw is announced this morning.
Contact Jamie MacFarlane at jamiemac ‘at’ stanford.edu.