On Sunday, April 21 the PAC-12 tournament began play at the Palouse Ridge Golf Club in Pullman, WA. Going into the tournament, the Pac-12 was among the strongest conferences for Women’s golf, with Stanford coming in as the favorites, ranked No. 1 in the nation. Every team in the Pac-12 besides WSU was ranked among the top 75 teams in the nation. 

Round one, which began on Sunday morning, gave the golfers a unique challenge: weather. High winds and temperatures south of forty degrees in the morning made things difficult for the golfers, especially for the southern teams. Every school besides Stanford shot scores above par, and even the top-ranked Cardinals only managed a score of one below. Oregon was securely in second place, at five above par, while WSU led the rest of the pack in third place, despite shooting nine over. The host school was on pace for its highest finish in Pac-12 history. 

USC was in fourth place, one stroke behind WSU, despite a strong performance from sophomore Catherine Park, who shot two-under par and was tied with WSU’s Madelyn Gamble in the lead through the first round. 

Round two saw the weather improve, and two California schools took advantage to break away from the pack. Stanford scored a team mark of twenty below par, giving them a clear lead. USC moved from fourth to second place, led by Park, who finished eight below par, taking a five-stroke lead and setting herself to potentially break the Pac-12 record for the lowest score in a championship tournament. 

Oregon remained in third place after the second round, with UCLA moving into fourth, Arizona State in fifth, and WSU in sixth place. The rest of the teams also saw improvement in round two, taking advantage of much better conditions. 

On day three, the field remained mostly stable, and even warmer weather helped Stanford and USC set records as the tournament came to an end. 

Stanford finished the tournament with a final score of 28-below par, shattering the previous tournament record of 18-below, which was set in 2016 by USC. The Cardinal were led by sophomores Kelly Xu and Megha Ganne. Xu finished second overall, with a score of ten-below par, while Ganne finished fourth, shooting seven-below. Senior Rachel Heck also finished in the top-10, with a score of four-below par. 

USC completed their second-place finish by also breaking their previous record, shooting a combined team score of 20 below. Oregon finished third, at 16-below, and UCLA came in fourth, with a score of 12-below. The rest of the Pac-12 shot scores above par, with Washington in fifth, Arizona in sixth, Arizona State seventh, Oregon State eighth, California in ninth, WSU in tenth and Colorado in last place. The Buffaloes, who entered the tournament ranked No. 72 in the nation, needed a strong performance to get chosen for the 70-team field of regionals. Their last-place finish likely cost them that chance. 

Individually, Catherine Park won the tournament easily and broke the Pac-12 individual record. She came into hole 18 with a score of 13-under, which would have broken the record by a single stroke. She needed a single par to break the record, but instead of settling, Park gave the crowd a highlight that will likely be shown for the rest of her life. 

On the par-5 hole 18, she chipped onto the green in just her second shot. Already guaranteed the win, Park was no longer stressed. She stared down a 33-foot putt and made it look easy, as she beautifully completed the difficult shot for an eagle on the final hole. With a final score of fifteen below, Park will go down in the history books with the best score in Pac-12 tournament history. With the Pac-12 dissolving after this athletic year, there will be no more tournaments, so Park’s individual mark, as well as Stanford’s team mark, are set in stone. 

Oregon’s Kiara Romero finished in third place, with a score of nine below par. Romero skyrocketed up the leaderboards with a performance of seven below in the third round, surprising the field by leapfrogging five golfers and finishing on the podium. 

Stanford’s head coach Anne Walker had some parting words for the golfers at the tournament’s end. 

“Congratulations to all the golfers,” she said. “I will miss competing in the Pac-12…against all these amazing players and coaches.”

Because it was the final Pac-12 tournament, Walker said the victory was “very special” to her. 

Most of the schools, with the exception of Colorado and WSU, will likely be chosen for the NCAA regional tournaments, so the season will continue for the majority of the golfers in Pullman. Still, as the awards ceremony wrapped up and the coaches, golfers and parents began to slowly make their way from the clubhouse to the parking lot and away from the course, there was a certain feeling of melancholy in the air, knowing this would be the last time these 11 schools would come together to compete in women’s golf. 

It was a tournament to remember, complete with records being set both at a team level and individually. Pac-12 women’s golf certainly went out with a bang.