Northwestern takes down No. 1 — Takeaways from Copper Rock
The IX: Golf Thursday with Marin Dremock, May 22, 2025
It’s been a busy week in college golf, so let’s round up the NCAA Division I, II and III National Championships.
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Happy college Golf Thursday!
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It was quite a week at the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf National Championship at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. From Stanford doing Stanford things to walk-off chip-ins to not one, not two, but THREE extended semifinal matches, the drama was high, and the golf was fantastic.
At the end of an intense, emotional, back-and-forth match play final, Northwestern eventually came out victorious over the No. 1 team in the country, Stanford, by a slim margin of 3-2.
But first, let’s take a look at how the Wildcats got here.
Northwestern finished third overall in the stroke play section of the tournament with a team score of 2-over-par, but that’s all that was needed to secure a seed in match play. Led by senior captain Lauren Nguyen and first-year stars Hsin Tai Lin and Elise Lee, the Wildcats outlasted No. 2 ranked Arkansas 3-2 on Tuesday, May 20.
Nguyen, celebrating her birthday, sealed the deal with a win on the 19th hole of the match. This punched the ticket for the Wildcats to face Big Ten foe Oregon in a semifinal match.
And that match couldn’t have been any closer. Northwestern again had to weather the storm and fight for the winning point. The ‘Cats beat the Ducks 3-2 in the semifinal match to play Stanford in the National Championship.
This time, junior Dianna Lee and sophomore Ashley Yun complemented E. Lee’s second match play victory of the tournament. D. Lee secured a victory on the 18th hole despite not feeling well, and E. Lee and Yun both won their matches 2 and 1.
It was shaping up to be an entertaining final round. Stanford won its semifinal match against Florida State, a team with literally the best players in the country, 3.5-1.5. The Card was ready to defend that national title after taking down World Amateur No. 1 Lottie Woad and Annika Award winner Mirabel Ting.
But Northwestern came out swinging. Smooth, confident strokes put the Wildcats up in two matches early. However, Megha Ganne proved too much for Yun, as she fell 5 and 4 in her match to the Stanford veteran.
Northwestern was able to equalize and get a point on the board with Tai Lin’s victory over Meja Örtengren 3 and 2. These two matches were the only matches that either side dominated. The other three? Utter nail-biters.
The next point on the board was Nguyen’s 1-up win over Paula Martín Sampedro. Nguyen made a clutch par putt on the 18th hole to stop Sampedro from stealing another win for Stanford. The senior fought through holes where she was see-sawing between 2 up and 1 up and then even all square. Nguyen played some gritty golf down the stretch, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from the veteran Wildcat.
The match sat at 2-1 to Northwestern’s advantage until Stanford’s Kelly Xu closed out her match against E. Lee on the 18th hole. Now 2-2, the national title rested on the shoulders of either Stanford’s Andrea Revuelta or Northwestern’s Dianna Lee.
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Revuelta had by far her easiest chance of the day to tie the match on the 16th hole. D. Lee’s tee shot on the par-3 took two hops on the green but rolled into the back bunker. Revuelta put herself in a perfect position to give it a run for birdie or to even just have two putts for par. She did neither of those things.
Both D. Lee and Revuelta ended up bogeying the hole, and D. Lee stayed 1 up in the match. Revuelta missed two more birdie putts on the 17th and 18th holes, and halving each of them was good enough for Northwestern. D. Lee breathed through her routine and rolled in a textbook par putt to win the Wildcats’ first NCAA DI Women’s Golf National Championship in school history.
I couldn’t breathe watching this final. The fact that each of those golfers kept their composure and played their best golf at just the right time was incredible to watch. The poise, the patience and the passion were so evident in both of these teams.
But the victorious underdog Northwestern has so much to be proud of. To have barely any of your semifinal match televised says everything you need to know about the fame and fortune of the team you’re going up against. All lights were shining on Stanford, and the repeat championship was already in their hands in the eyes of, well, everyone in the country.
Northwestern absolutely stole it. Those ladies showed their determination and resilience and did not go down quietly. They did not want to be the Cardinal’s latest victim.
Stanford should absolutely be patting itself on the back as well. It’s unreal for a team to get to a national championship match again, let alone win it two times in the last four years. The Cardinal will be back, considering none of their starting five are graduating and granted none of them decide to turn pro before we’re ready for them to depart from the collegiate golf world.
At the Division II level, Dallas Baptist took charge of the National Championship with a dominant 4-1 match play victory over Central Missouri. CSU San Marco senior Madison Murr captured the individual title, becoming the second individual national champion in school history.
Murr’s three-round total of 14-under-par saw her take the title three shots ahead of Dallas Baptist’s Gracie Grant. She shot 69 in the first and third rounds and carded a stunning 64 in the second. That 8-under second round included a bogey-free front-nine 31 and two eagles a birdie on a back-nine 33.
No. 4 Dallas Baptist marched into the match play final after beating the No. 1 and No. 2 ranked teams in the quarter and semifinal matches. Despite Ella Cheek being unable to close out the first match of the day for the Patriots, the team rallied and won four straight points to seal the championship match. Sidney Robertson recovered to win her match after being down the entire first nine holes. Madison Ude led her entire match to claim DBU’s second victory.
Then, Gracie Grant closed out her match against Kiki Bruner 1-up. This secured DBU’s winning point, and the last match was a wash. Jordan Karrh dominated her match 8-up to put the icing on the cake for the victorious Patriots.
In the Division III tournament, Emory bested defending champion Carnegie Mellon to win its second national title. Emory sophomore Carys Code also became the program’s second ever individual national champion. She broke the NCAA DIII championship scoring record with a four-day total of 285 (-3).
Code posted three very clean rounds in the last three days of the tournament, shooting 71–70–71 in rounds two, three and four, respectively. She also only carded two bogeys in her last two rounds. Call it calm, call it cool, call it consistent.
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The Eagles joined elite DIII company Methodist and Rhodes as the only programs to win multiple women’s golf national titles in DIII history. They did so with their 1,168 (+16) four-round total score. The score is a new national best, as Emory beat its own record of 1,175 set at the 2022 National Championship.
A record-breaking day for all Emory Eagles, for certain.
Seeing this fiery finish to the 2024-25 college golf season, I think it’s going to be a long wait until September. And although some of the brightest stars are graduating and moving on to bigger things, we’ll probably still be watching those Stanford players in another national championship final. These ladies can play.
This week in women’s golf
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2025 U.S. Women’s Open presented by Ally: Qualifying results
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Amateur/NCAA News
Northwestern upsets Stanford, wins first women’s golf national championship
Stanford and Northwestern advance to the 2025 NCAA DI women’s golf national championship match
Stanford vs. FSU—top team vs. top players—in heavyweight NCAA women’s semifinals
Arkansas’ Maria José Marin wins 2025 NCAA DI women’s golf individual championship
Mirabel Ting ears two points in the LPGA Elite Amateur Pathway standings
Maria Jose Marin earns two points in LPGA Elite Amateur Pathway standings
Emory wins 2025 NCAA DIII women’s golf championship
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Natalie Yen and Asia Young win the 2025 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship
Five at The IX: Five quotes from the Epson Tour’s Copper Rock Championship
Gina Kim (1, -13) on fighting through tough conditions to win her second Epson Tour event of the season:
“I think just being able to really enjoy all that pressure and all those nerves really helped me just settle down and still do my routine even in the midst of all of that. It was fun today. I loved battling it out.”
Hailee Cooper (4, -10) on the unlucky side of golf and being able to overcome it:
“Well, it’s hard. I was thinking during that, I was like, ‘Oh, you know what? Crap luck, right? Or bad luck?’ But I was thinking back, and I was like, you know, you’ve got some pretty good bounces, especially yesterday, so you’re probably due to have a bad bounce here now. It was pretty bad. Should have just been a bogey, I turned it into a double, so I quickly got off my little fit and went birdie, birdie to make that up.”
Siyun “Swing” Liu (T-8, -8) on a blustery final round:
“It’s definitely really hard to navigate the game for tee shots and approach shots. I was calculating the wind on my three-footers, so, yeah, it takes a lot of thinking. You really have to trust your shots. I didn’t really trust my final putt.
But for the most part, I mean, I executed really well. I hit the ball exactly where I wanted to, putted really well, speed and rate-wise. I think it’s one of the best rounds I’ve ever played, without the first and last holes. I made a lot of mid-range putts that I did not think could go in.”
Carla Tejedo Mulet (T-2, -12) after the first round on feeling good about her game lately:
“I’ve been playing pretty good during the stretch here in the West, and having my mom on the bag really helps, having that company, that comfort on the bag. It was just, I think, time to happen, and it was so nice just playing without the wind on the front nine. Putts started to roll in, and yeah, just feeling great about my game and excited to get this going.”
Melanie Green (T-2, -12) reflecting after her bogey-free 64 in the second round:
“Yeah, I mean, all glory to God, really. You just kind of look around this place, and you see the creation that he created, right?
It’s peaceful out here, so I don’t try to sit back and think about how good I’m playing and just kind of stay in the present moment and thanking him for this.”
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