The first round of stroke play is in the books at Omni La Costa Golf Club in Carlsbad, California, and the USC Trojans have jumped out to an early lead.
The Trojans got strong contributions from everyone on their star-studded roster with Bailey Shoemaker (-2), Kylie Chong (-2), Jasmine Koo (-1) and Catherine Park (-1) each shooting under par scores.
Following close behind the Trojans are the Stanford Cardinal, led by star Megha Ganne, who jumped out to the lead in the individual competition. Ganne shot -4, helping to get the Cardinal just one stroke back of the Trojans at -6 overall. Neither Andrea Revuelta (+3) or Paula Martín Sampedro (+1) shot particularly well, so there is plenty of room for improvement.
No. 7 ranked Arkansas played solid, currently sitting in fifth place, within the cut line for match play, but didn’t get a lot of contributions from star María José Marin (above), the defending champion here and Augusta National Women’s Amateur winner in 2026. Marin had four bogeys and four birdies on her way to an even par round.
Currently, three teams are tied for eighth, with only eight teams making it through to the match play portion of the event.
The 10 teams currently in the picture are USC, Stanford, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Eastern Michigan, Arkansas, Missouri, SMU, LSU and Texas. The entire leaderboard is very bunched though, with four more teams within one stroke of that cutoff.
The NCAA Division I Women’s Golf National Championship continues today.
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