The Stanford golf teams are in the final stretch, entering the NCAA postseason in the coming week. The women’s team will head into action first, playing May 8-10 in the Albuquerque Regional at The Championship Golf Course at the University of New Mexico. The men have to wait a little longer but get home field advantage at the Stanford Golf Course May 15-17.
The women head into regionals ranked first nationally, according to Golfstat. The Cardinal most recently placed third at the Pac-12 championships April 24-26 and look to build on that outing in regionals. The Albuquerque Regional is one of four, with the others taking place in Lubbock, Texas; Columbus, Ohio and Athens, Georgia.
Each regional plays host to roughly 24 teams. In addition, the tournament will host a number of individuals whose college teams did not make NCAAs but who personally qualified for the NCAA individual title. Six teams and three individuals will move on to NCAA Nationals, which will be held May 19-24 at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Illinois.
Stanford will compete against five other top-25 teams: sixth-ranked USC, eighth-ranked Duke, 16th-ranked Miami, 17th-ranked Oklahoma State and 24th-ranked NC State.
The Stanford team’s lineup will be freshman Andrea Lee, senior Casey Danielson, freshman Albane Valenzuela, junior Shannon Aubert and sophomore Sierra Kersten. Lee, Danielson and Valenzuela all earned first-team Pac-12 honors this season.
The Cardinal are coming off of a national championship in 2015 and a runner-up finish in 2016 and look to continue that momentum.
The setup for the men’s golf team is a little bit different from the women’s. First and foremost, the Cardinal will not have to travel. Stanford is again a regional host, so the players will have a chance to take advantage of their local course knowledge. The Stanford Regional is one of six for the men, with others in Sammamish, Washington; Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Austin, Texas; West Lafayette, Indiana and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
There are 81 total teams and 45 individual competitors split between the six regionals. Five teams and three individuals from each will advance to NCAA Nationals. As with the women, Nationals will be held at Rich Harvest Farms in Illinois. For the men, the Nationals dates are May 26-31.
Noteworthy competitors in Stanford’s 13-team regional include ninth-ranked Baylor, 15th-ranked Oklahoma and 21st-ranked Georgia Tech.
The Stanford lineup for regionals has not yet been released, but if recent lineups are any indication, the lineup will be some combination of seniors Maverick McNealy and Viraat Badhwar, juniors Franklin Huang and Bradley Knox and sophomores Brandon Wu and Isaiah Salinda.
The players start to tee off at 8:30 a.m. Monday and Tuesday and 8 a.m. on Wednesday at the Stanford Golf Course.
Contact Jamie MacFarlane at jamiemac ‘at’ stanford.edu