There were many similarities between No. 2 USC women’s golf and No. 1 Stanford this season. Both entered the year with three national championships in their illustrious program histories. Both were also exceptionally dominant this season, ultimately winning eight stroke play tournaments each, many of which were not close. 

And on May 27, after winning their respective conference tournaments and cruising through the NCAA Championship stroke play and match play rounds, the Trojans and Cardinal met in the national championship match with a chance to prove once and for all who the best team in collegiate women’s golf was this season. 

Despite USC’s preeminent play all year, Stanford emerged victorious, winning four of the five singles matches to claim the national title. For the Trojans, the runner-up finish is their second in four years, and third since they last won the national championship in 2013.

Park, Koo lead USC in stroke play

Needing a top-eight finish after 72 holes of stroke play from May 22-25 to qualify for the match play rounds for the fourth straight season, USC immediately put itself in position to compete for a national title. The Trojans finished second behind Stanford at 9-under-par, 13 shots behind the Cardinal but 10 clear of third-place teams Arkansas and Texas. 

USC and Stanford traded control of first place throughout the four-day stroke play event, but the Cardinal used rounds of 282 and 279 on days two and three to comfortably grab medalist honors. 

After becoming the national championship runner-up as a freshman, senior Catherine Park had a chance to finish her collegiate career in style and do one better three years later. She entered the final round with a share of the lead at 10-under after firing a 7-under 65 in the third round. The round featured eight birdies, including a bogey-free 4-under 32 on the back nine. 

In the final round on May 25, looking for the elusive national title, Park struggled to get going and couldn’t produce any positive momentum in the windy conditions. She made just one birdie en route to a 2-over 74, finishing in fourth place out of an 84-player cut at 8-under for the tournament. 

Park finished four shots behind Texas junior Farah O’Keefe, who claimed the individual national championship. 

Sophomore Jasmine Koo also racked up a top-12 finish for the Trojans, playing four consistent rounds, none of which were over par, to end the tournament in 11th at 4-under. 

Junior Bailey Shoemaker opened with a bogey-free 70 for USC but couldn’t avoid big mistakes in the last two rounds. Her five-birdie third round was spoiled by a triple bogey on the 11th and an ensuing double bogey on the 13th that prevented her from making a substantial move up the leaderboard, leaving her in a tie for 23rd at 1-over. 

USC bests Duke, Arkansas to advance to title match

Before making it to the national championship match, the Trojans were set up with a quarterfinal match against No. 10 Duke, which shot 7-over for seventh place in the stroke play rounds. 

The Blue Devils put up a valiant effort, but USC won three of the five matches to extend its season. 

None of the matches, including the ones the Trojans lost, were very close. Park and Shoemaker cruised to 5-and-3 and 6-and-4 victories, respectively. Koo fell 5-and-4, and sophomore Elise Lee fell 5-and-3, putting the result of the overall match into the hands of sophomore Kylie Chong. 

In the deciding final match, Chong won holes 13 through 15 to clinch the 4-and-3 win and send USC to the semifinal round later that afternoon. There, the Trojans faced off against No. 7 Arkansas, which swept Oklahoma State 5-0 in the quarterfinals. 

Koo and Park never trailed in their matches against the Razorbacks, both winning 3-and-2. Chong dropped her match to senior and reigning Augusta National Women’s Amateur champion Maria Jose Marin, and Shoemaker lost an extremely close match on the 18th hole. 

But once again, the Trojans took care of business in the anchor match, as Lee delivered a clutch 5-and-3 victory, ensuring one final showdown with Stanford for the national title the next day. 

Stanford defeats USC in championship match

After a season where just about every team proved to be no match for the Trojans, USC finally ran into a fellow juggernaut in the national championship final. The Cardinal were elite all year, and at the NCAA Championships in Carlsbad, they ran away from the field in stroke play and swept their matches against Pepperdine University and Eastern Michigan University. 

The opening few holes of the championship match, when Stanford took sizable early leads, proved costly, as USC failed to recover and was simply outmatched. 

Shoemaker fell 4-down after just five holes to senior and defending U.S. Women’s Amateur champion Megha Ganne. Shoemaker battled and cut into Ganne’s lead, but the deficit was too large to overcome, as she fell 4-and-3. Koo, who suffered a similar fate, was 5-down at the turn and eventually lost 6-and-5. 

Park grabbed an early edge in her match, but a double bogey on the par-5 sixth gave Stanford the lead in the match that Park never reclaimed, ultimately losing 3-and-2. 

“Unfortunately, we got off to a slow start with some self-inflicted errors,” Head Coach Justin Silverstein said in an interview with Golf Channel immediately after the championship match. “In the first 10 holes, we bogeyed five par-5s, and, against a team like this that doesn’t make a bunch of mistakes, you can’t give them that many holes in match play.”

Those three match victories sealed the national championship for the Cardinal, but the Trojans kept fighting. Chong won her intense match 1-up, and Lee was 1-down on 16 before her match was suspended once Stanford picked up its third point. 

Despite the disappointing outcome in the championship match, Silverstein said he still believes this season’s squad, which broke multiple team and individual program records, was one of the best in USC history.

“We won seven tournaments in a row heading into this week, and we were runners-up this week,” Silverstein said. “They have a lot to be proud of. This would’ve been the cherry on top and would’ve probably put us in a different category of all-time teams, but unfortunately, it didn’t fall our way today.”

Though the Trojans will lose Park after a storied four-year career, the rest of the roster, full of young players, is expected to return next season, setting USC up to once again compete for a national championship.