Women’s golf team should win it all


What did you accomplish this past weekend? Odds are it wasn’t as cool as what Jordan Spieth did.

Spieth made 21 year olds across every college campus in America look bad in comparison. He wasn’t celebrating that he can finally get into The 9-0 without his fake ID; he was celebrating that he won arguably the most prestigious tournament in the world.

There are some students at USC who didn’t win the Masters, but nonetheless, had pretty solid weekends on a golf course. The members of the women’s golf team proved this weekend that they’re still some of the best in the country and have a great shot at the national championship.

They aren’t exactly on Spieth’s level, but when it comes to the national rankings, no one is really on USC’s level. The Women of Troy came into its final regular season meet at ASU this weekend as the No. 1 team in the country.

The team had a very solid performance, but fell short of winning the tournament. USC finished tied for fourth place, behind No. 8 Arizona, No. 25 ASU and No. 27 Baylor. The team combined to finish six strokes over par, nine strokes behind the first place Wildcats. Given the nature of team tournaments, when four players combine scores over three rounds, a difference like that is comparable to an individual finishing two or three strokes behind the leader.

Individually, junior Annie Park finished third at five under par, sophomore Gabriella Then finished sixth at two under par, senior Doris Chen finished 39th at six over par and freshman Amy Lee finished tied for 45th at seven over par.

The men’s team was also in action this weekend, and it, too, is among some of the best collegiate teams in the country. The Trojans came into their final regular season event as the No. 10-ranked team in the country and finished seventh. The men’s team doesn’t have the same tradition for success as the women’s team, but the Trojans are definitely in the mix and could claim their        first-ever national championship.

The women’s side has been there before. Since 1982, when the NCAA first started fielding a women’s golf national championship competition, the Women of Troy have brought home three national titles. In 2003, 2008 and 2013, all under coach Andrea Gaston, USC finished on top of the team leaderboard. Four other times — 1994, 2006, 2010 and 2013 — the Women of Troy have finished as runners-up.

Individually, the Women of Troy also have a strong tradition of success. USC has had five individual national champions on the women’s side, tied for all-time most. Jennifer Rosales brought one home in 1998, Mikaela Parmlid led USC to the 2003 team national championship by winning the individual national championship and while the team fell short in 2006, Dewi Schreefel was able to win USC the individual title that year.

The two other individual national champions are currently on USC’s roster. Park won the individual title in 2013 as a freshman, 10 years after Parmlid led the Women of Troy to a championship sweep. Last season, Chen was the individual national champion, and she looks to be in the mix to defend her title.

Both of the last two years, the national championship has come down to Duke and USC. Duke has won five titles since 2000, the only school with more than USC’s in that window. Last year, during the four-day national championship tournament, the Blue Devils had a total score of 1,130 strokes, a mere two strokes ahead of USC.

When it all adds up, there’s a lot of variance over the course of a season with a golf team. No. 2 Washington, No. 3 UCLA, No. 4 South Carolina and No. 5 Duke finished 14th, ninth, fourth and seventh respectively at ASU’s tournament. ASU, barely in the top 25, and Baylor, not even in the top 25, both finished in the top five at the tournament. Though crowd noise usually isn’t a factor, home course advantage can be crucial when traveling and course familiarity comes into play.

Like any other sport, the matter of inches can be the difference between a green and a sand trap or a made and a missed birdie putt. But unlike any other sport, there is a huge degree of variation in the conditions depending on the location of tournaments. Football fields are all the same length, basketball hoops are all the same diameter but golf courses can be very different. The speed of the greens, width of the fairways and the general difficulty of the course are never exactly the same at different courses. Despite the inherent unpredictability of the sport, the Women of Troy have one huge advantage going into the NCAA tournament: experience.

Golf, more than any other sport is intensely mental. Obviously, it takes some technique to consistently drive balls onto the green and some hand-eye coordination to read it and sink putts, but so much of the game is about being in the right mindset. It’s very easy for golfers to psych themselves out while playing, especially in a high-pressure situation like a national championship tournament. But the great equalizer for pressure like that is having been there before. With two individual national champions on the roster and top-two finishes the last two seasons, experience is exactly what the Women of Troy have. The No. 1 ranking does put a target of some sort on the team’s back, but the Women of Troy don’t have to face the pressure of defending their national title.

They have nothing to lose as a group — they just have to use last year’s finish as motivation to win back what was there two years ago.

As fellow columnist Darian Nourian wrote last week, USC is due for a national championship this academic year, and the women’s golf team probably has the best chance at making that happen.

So I’m going to take his prediction from last week one step further: the women’s golf team will win the 2015 national championship. Of course, it’s not a guarantee, but I honestly think the Women of Troy have the best shot out of anyone to win the title.

Now that would be something worth celebrating at The 9–0.