#28 women's golf at the NCAA Golf Championships (May 18-23, Stillwater OK)

[AztecBuff]

The Buffs are at Karsten Creek in Stillwater OK for the NCAA Championships, which start tomorrow. (See quoted part of the article below for format.)

Best wishes to the Buffs in Oklahoma!

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Direct link - http://cubuffs.com/news/2018/5/17/w...ose-excited-to-play-in-ncaa-championship.aspx

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Colorado made its first NCAA Women's Golf Championship appearance in 2012 and the goal ever since then was to get back.

The road hasn't been easy and the previous two years were the most gut wrenching of all, missing that elusive goal by a single stroke each time.

However that all changed last week in San Francisco. Colorado had big-time performances up and down its lineup and thus six years later, the Buffaloes return to the NCAA Championship, which tees off Friday at the Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla.

"They are excited to be here," Colorado head coach Anne Kelly said. "They've worked so hard to get here and like Robyn (Choi) said the other day 'I can't believe we're here!' All the work they put in to that goal and then with the last two years being like a punch in the gut. But now we're very excited and happy to be here."

The two things that went really well for the Buffaloes last week will be key again this week. One, Colorado had five under par rounds including a pair in the 60s. Brittany Fan shot a CU NCAA Regional record 66 in the first round while Robyn Choi followed up with a 69 on the final day.

Colorado's top three golfers accounted for the top three 54-hole NCAA Region round scores in program history: Fan at 5-under, 211, Choi at 1-under, 215, and Kirsty Hodgkins at even, 216.

Secondly, Colorado's fourth and fifth golfers played very well. Junior Gillian Vance's 74 in the first round as the fourth scorer allowed the Buffaloes to set the tone early with an under par team round. The highest score thrown out of any of the three rounds was 5-over, 77.
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This will be the fourth year the NCAA team champion is determined in match play. All 24 teams will play three rounds of stroke play, May 18-20. The top 15 teams, plus top nine individuals not on an advancing team, will play an additional 18-holes of stroke play on Monday, May 21, to determine the top eight teams for match play and the 72-hole stroke play individual champion.

The top eight teams, seeded after the 72-hole stroke play rounds, will meet up in match play to determine the team champion. Quarterfinals and semifinal matches will take place Tuesday, May 22, with the final on Wednesday, May 23

Colorado will pair with Ohio State and Mississippi for the first two rounds. The grouping will tee off from No. 1 in Friday's first round at 7:36 a.m. MT and will have a later start Saturday, as the same trio will begin at No. 10 with a 12:21 p.m. tee time. Round three on Sunday will be reshuffled after the second round.
"Our goal is to play as best we can and then see where that lands us," Kelly said. "Golf is a funny sport; it's hard to predict. You just shoot the best you can and add it up when you get done and at the end hopefully you're right in it.

"Coming into every tournament you want to win. We have a team of competitors that will do as well as they can. It's a tough field. Everyone that qualified is a good team so we have a challenge ahead of us. We're really looking forward to playing and see how we do."
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Buff Championship notes - http://cubuffs.com/documents/2018/5/17//cunotes_ncaa_championship.pdf

Live TV coverage (Golf channel, per https://www.golfchannel.com/article...lf-coverage-culminating-ncaa-womens-and-mens/ ):

Golf Channel NCAA Women’s Golf Championships Coverage

Monday, May 21	Individual National Championship	4-8 p.m. ET (Live)
Tuesday, May 22	Quarterfinals, Team Match Play	11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. ET (Live)
Tuesday, May 22	Semifinals, Team Match Play	4-8 p.m. ET (Live)
Wednesday, May 23	Team National Championship	4-8 p.m. ET (Live)

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Live Leaderboards -
Stroke play (1st 4 rounds, 5/18-5/21) - http://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=13662

Match Play (5/22-5/23) - http://results.golfstat.com//public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=participants&tid=15141

 

[AztecBuff]

I was nervous after seeing their high (+18) team score as part of the morning wave, but obviously the course is playing tough (leader at +3). With the top 15 teams "making the cut" after the 3rd round, and the top 8 after 4 rounds making the match play quarterfinals, the Buffs are sitting in a tie for 13th after the 1st round, 5 strokes away from a 3-way tie for 7th.

Keep it up Buffs- just need everyone to shave a stroke or two off their future rounds!

 

[Not Sure]

I was nervous after seeing their high (+18) team score as part of the morning wave, but obviously the course is playing tough (leader at +3). With the top 15 teams "making the cut" after the 3rd round, and the top 8 after 4 rounds making the match play quarterfinals, the Buffs are sitting in a tie for 13th after the 1st round, 5 strokes away from a 3-way tie for 7th.

Keep it up Buffs- just need everyone to shave a stroke or two off their future rounds!




View attachment 25697

Look at that leaderboard and try to tell me the PAC 12 isn’t the dominant conference in this tournament. Holy cow.

 

[AztecBuff]

Buffs with another solid round yesterday that was very similar to round one. They shot a better score yesterday (+11 vs. +20), but so did the rest of the field as the Buffs fell one spot (from a tie for 13th to a tie for 14th). Today is cut day, and the Buffs are right on the line. (They are now 11 strokes behind the current 8th place team, which is where they need to get at the end of tomorrow's round to make the quarters.)

Yesterday's (afternoon) round was interrupted by weather, so I believe the Buffs finished much later than they anticipated.

 

[Uncle Ken]

**** baylor

 

[AztecBuff]

Roughly halfway through the 3rd round, and the Buffs are still in the hunt to finish in one of the top 15 spots that advance to tomorrow's 4th round. (Unless they either get very hot or fall on very hard times, looks like it's going to be another nailbiter, with a stroke or two being the difference between them making the cut or not.)

 

[AztecBuff]

Well, looks like the Buffs are JUST going to miss the cut by a stroke or two (pending a couple teams still on the course). With only 15 teams making the cut, there are now 16 teams in the clubhouse at +39 or better (2 at +39), and the Buffs just finished at +40. They went +3 among their scorers in the 16th and 17th to get themselves in bad shape, so that even though they then went a GREAT -3 on the par 5 18th, it wasn't QUITE enough to make the cut.

Still a great effort by the Buffs- hope they all have a great summer, and best wishes in all her future endeavors to their one senior Brittany Fan.

 

[AztecBuff]

Was just looking, and sophomore Robin Choi is currently the top placed Buff, and is in a 6 way tie in 24th (at +4). Too lazy to go through everyone ahead of her, but looks to me she has a good chance of advancing as an individual to tomorrow's final round. (From the cubuffs article also quoted in the OP "The top 15 teams, plus top nine individuals not on an advancing team, will play an additional 18-holes of stroke play on Monday, May 21, to determine the top eight teams for match play and the 72-hole stroke play individual champion.")

The two leaders are at -7 and many more ahead ahead of her +4, so assume Ms. Choi doesn't a realistic chance for a victory, but still a nice honor and opportunity for the young woman to play another round against top competition. (As I also noted in another thread, she also just recently went through a qualification tournament (or tournaments?) and qualified for her 2nd straight U.S. Women's Open.)

Edit- Quickly going through the teams who may not qualify, and even the 2nd Buff, Brittany Fan, who is tied for 42nd at +7, MAY qualify for a round tomorrow also, although it looks like in her case it will be close one way or the other.

 

[AztecBuff]

Article on the 4th day of action yesterday, where Robin Choi shot par to end up in a tie for 21st in the individual portion of the Championships-


In action today, the format has switched to match play, with 4 of the 8 quarter finalists playing this morning being Pac 12 teams. From that, The Pac has 3 (USC, Stanford and Arizona) of the 4 teams that advanced to the semis. At this point, looks like #2 Alabama has a pretty solid lead over #3 USC to reach the finals, while #8 Arizona (which had to play some extra holes yesterday to qualify over Baylor in a tiebreaker), holds a good-size advantage in 3 of the 5 matches over #5 Stanford.