Another Fall Golf season is in the books.

Hello All,

As the last few weeks of 2015 slowly inch by, we look back on what has been a YEAR TO REMEMBER for the Stanford Women's Golf program.

How can we ever forget the dramatic 2015 NCAA Women's Golf Championship and the 15ft birdie putt Mariah Stackhouse made on the final hole to secure the title? Our first National Championship in 50 years of Stanford Golf. The year 2015 will forever be etched into the history books of Stanford Golf, as will the team members names who made this dream come true.

We came into the fall season excited to play and enjoy the spoils of being the reigning NCAA Champions. The team certainly lived up to their expectations, capturing two victories in three starts! It began with a record breaking performance at the Branch Law Firm Invitational in New Mexico. The team posted a first round score of -11 and followed that with rounds of -2 and -7, truly remarkable play. Records were set left, right and center - a fun way to begin the 2015-16 campaign!

We followed that victory with a fairly dull performance in Florida at the Annika Intercollegiate. Jet-lag, bermuda greens and muggy weather slowed up our performance and gave us lots to work on going into our home event at the end of October.

The Stanford Intercollegiate is known as one of college golf's "major championships". It is the best event on the West Coast each fall and attracts the top teams from all Conferences. It is always a challenge to finish top-five at the Intercollegiate. We tied for first with USC at the 2014 Championship, that was the first time we had won since 1997. So, this year we came in with our minds firmly focused on winning the title outright and that is exactly what we did. We led wire to wire and although USC and UCLA poured in birdies the last day early in the round, the team stayed steady and focused, eventually outplaying both those teams and winning the Championship by a handful of strokes.

Individually, we saw great improvement and contribution from sophomore Shannon Aubert. Shannon is currently ranked #18 in the country, her lowest ranking to date and she is on pace to be an All-American this year. We are led by senior Lauren Kim, who is currently ranked #8 nationally and Mariah Stackhouse who is ranked #31. Casey Danielson is right on their heels ranked #52 in the nation and with a strong spring season, will be easily able to move into the All-American consideration.

We just signed our 2016 class this past week with two players from Southern California, Andrea Lee and Madie Chou. The third player, Emily Wang, will be coming from Beijing, China. This class will also be joined by 2015 signee, Albane Valenzuela who choose to defer a year after high school graduation. You can read more about the class at www.gostanford.com.

The team will enjoy these last weeks of 2015 as the reigning NCAA Champs and then we will begin the 2016 year fresh and focused on the upcoming Championship in May. We learned this past year how long, challenging and difficult the journey to the Championship can be. We will focus all of our efforts on our preparation and things that are within our control because undoubtedly we will face obstacles that are at this time unknown to us!

We can't thank you enough for your support through the year. To all the folks who came out and volunteered during our home tournament, thank you. We appreciate your help and winning the title is more for you than for us.

Have a great Thanksgiving and Holiday Season with your family.
All the best,
Anne Walker and The Stanford Women's Golf Team

2014-15 Season!

For the first time in Stanford women’s golf history, we won the 2015 National Championship at Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida. 

This was the first year match play was added to the women’s championship format.  We played 4 rounds of stroke play where juniors, Mariah Stackhouse and Lauren Kim led the way finishing 6^th and 7^th respectively individually helping us gain a berth to the match play event. Sophomore Casey Danielson and freshman Shannon Aubert topped the year with a 3-0 match play record to help us top Arizona, USC, and Baylor University to clench the title! Junior Mariah Stackhouse showcased a heroic comeback after being 2 down with 2 to play in the final round of match play. She birdied the par 5 17^th and followed that with another birdie on 18 to force extra holes. After winning the 19^th hole with a par, the Stanford women’s golf team made history clenching the 2015 National Championship!

We had 5 student athletes earn PAC-12 Conference All-Academic honors. Junior Lauren Kim received first team All American honors for the second year in a row and Junior Mariah Stackhouse received an honorable mention All American honor.  Coach Anne Walker in just her third year at Stanford received the National Coach of the Year Award!

This summer, junior Lauren Kim represented the USA in the World University Games in Gwangju, Korea. Her and her teammates led team USA to a third place bronze medal finish. Lauren’s scores of 73-72-73-71 propelled her to a third place finish individually. Freshman Shannon Aubert and sophomore Quirine Eikenboom played in the European team championship representing their home country of France and Germany respectively. Team France took home the trophy.

Our only senior Mariko Tumangan graduated this year with a major in psychology. Mariko has been a huge asset to this team, she leaves Stanford a two time WGCA Academic All American, a three time PAC-12 All Academic honorable mention, with a low collegiate round of 66! We are happy to announce that Mariko will be staying close to the farm working at a start up company in San Francisco called Gain Fitness.  

We are so proud of what our team has accomplished and we are excited to have all the players back on campus to kick off our fall season at the Branch Law Firm Invitational in New Mexico.

Off to the National Championship!

We are thrilled to have qualified for our sixth straight NCAA Championship Finals! Finishing second in the St. George, UT region solidified our spot in the field. We had a great team contribution from top to bottom. Freshman Shannon Aubert played outstanding the first two rounds, posting the low round on the second day and setting the tempo for our team. Sophomores Danielson and Eijkenboom both contributed three rounds a piece that counted towards our team total. Junior Lauren Kim was solid as ever, finishing 7th in the event and first on our team. Mariah Stackhouse stayed steady and birdied her final hole of the event to post a key, 73 for the team that secured our second place finish. To have all five players compete well and work hard was the key to our finish.

We leave next Wednesday for the finals in Bradenton, FL. The tournament will be contested at Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, FL. It will be a historic event with a new format and Golf Channel live coverage. Twenty four teams will compete over 54 holes of strokeplay and then a cut will be made to 15 teams who will play another 18 holes. The low eight, aggregate team scores from the 72 holes of strokeplay will continue on to matchplay. At that point, it will be win or go home!! The final round of strokeplay and all of the match play will be aired live on Golf Channel! Hopefully we will be there and you can tune in to root for the Cardinal!

We are ranked #13 in the season heading to the finals. Junior Lauren Kim is our number one player, ranked #16 in the country and preparing to represent the United States at the World University Games this summer in Korea!

Thank you for all the great support we have been receiving. We appreciate the well wishes and the players love having such a strong fan base on campus.

Best,
Coach Anne and the Women's Golf Team

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Cardinal Fans! We hope everyone had a relaxing and fun filled holiday season. It was a busy off season for Coach Anne Walker and her husband Chris as they welcomed their first baby in the Stanford family! Emma Margaret Gundling was born on December 11, 2014 weighing 8lbs 2oz; both mom and baby are doing well! 

This fall, the team finished top 4 in all four events but the highlight was a share of the Stanford Intercollegiate title! The last time we managed this feat was in the fall of 1999. The final day was a dramatic showdown with USC and UCLA. A 64 from freshman Shannon Aubert and a 35 foot winning putt by Mariah Stackhouse on the 18th green clinched the title!

We wrapped the fall season at the PAC-12 Preview where we were again able to visit the beautiful Nanea Golf Club in Kona, Hawaii. We took 3rd place as a team and both Lauren Kim and Mariah Stackhouse finished in the top 10 individually. 

We finished the fall season ranked #5 on Golfweek and we are the only team in the country with four players ranked in the top 50 nationally and in the world!

National Collegiate Rankings: Lauren Kim #18, Mariah Stackhouse #20, Shannon Aubert #36, and Casey Danielson #44 (Golfweek, Jan 2015).

World Golf Rankings: Lauren Kim #25, Casey Danielson #32, Shannon Aubert #45, and Mariah Stackhouse #50 (WAGR, Jan 2015).

Most recently, our juniors were both honored nationally- Lauren Kim was selected to represent the United States at the World University Games hosted by South Korea this summer and Mariah Stackhouse was announce Global Golf Post's Female Amateur of the Year!

As we head into the spring season we have 5 tournaments on the schedule. We will open play with our home event, the Peg Barnard on February 14th and 15th. After the Peg, we continue on to the UC Irvine's Invitational presented by Kia where the individual winner will have the opportunity to play in the 2015 Kia Classic. Next up will be the Bruin Wave Classic and the Liz Murphy Invitational in Georgia where we will get some great match play practice against the top programs in the nation. We finish at ASU's Ping Invitational before we head to Colorado to defend our PAC-12 Conference Championship!

Hopefully the weather will cooperate this spring with rain on our off days and sunshine on our practice days!! Thanks for you continued support, we hope to see you out on the links!

Go Card!

Stanford Women's Golf