Stanford women’s golf has made the NCAA postseason look routine. Now, the Cardinal is just one match-play victory away from their second national championship in three seasons.
After dominating its home regional earlier this month, top-seeded Stanford carried momentum into Carlsbad, Calif., where they finished first in stroke play at the NCAA Championships and moved into the championship match after back-to-back 3-0 match-play sweeps on Tuesday.
The postseason run began at Stanford Golf Course, where the Cardinal won the regional tournament by a whopping 38 strokes, the largest margin of victory in program history. The Stanford golfers shot 810, 42 under par, setting the women’s team scoring record at the course. The historic effort sealed the program’s eighth regional title since 2016. Sophomore Andrea Revuelta won the individual regional title by two strokes over junior Paula Martín Sampedro, leaving Stanford with a one-two finish before they departed for Southern California.
The smooth swings continued into the national championship, even as the tournament moved through a series of cuts. Stanford opened stroke play with a six-under 282, one shot behind USC, behind a four-under 68 from senior Megha Ganne. By the conclusion of the second round, the Cardinal had climbed to the top of the 30-team field at 12 under as sophomore Meja Örtengren joined the individual lead with a round of 68.
Stanford never relinquished the lead. The Cardinal shot the best round of the tournament through three days, a nine-under 279 on Sunday, then survived a difficult final day of stroke play with a one-under 287 on Monday. That was enough to finish at 22 under — a sizable 13 strokes clear of runner-up USC — and secure the top seed for match play.
Ganne gave Stanford its best individual finish of the week, closing with a 70 on Monday to finish second at 10 under in her final NCAA Championship. Senior Kelly Xu surged with a 69 in the final round and tied for 14th with Örtengren. In total, three Cardinal golfers earned top-15 finishes before the tournament turned to head-to-head competition.
The quarterfinals gave Stanford its most certain win yet. Facing Pepperdine, the same program the Cardinal faced in the 2023 quarterfinals, Stanford closed out a 3-0 sweep while leading in all five matches.
Revuelta delivered the first point as she defeated Pepperdine’s Kylee Choi 5 and 4 after taking a quick early lead. Martín Sampedro followed with a 3 and 2 win over Yingzhi Zhu after overcoming a two-hole deficit early in the match. Örtengren earned the third win, despite dropping the first three holes in her match against Pepperdine’s Grace Anderson.
The win against Pepperdine sent Stanford into the semifinals against No. 5 Eastern Michigan, which upset No. 4 Texas in the quarterfinals after making the NCAA Championship field for the first time in program history. The Eagles’ Cinderella run, however, came to a halt against Stanford as the Cardinal posted another 3-0 shutout to advance to the national championship match for the third straight season.
Stanford will face No. 2 USC in Wednesday afternoon’s championship match. Stanford is 2-1 all-time against the Trojans in NCAA match play, with wins in 2015 and 2024.