Caroline Canales and the Bruins aim for UCLA’s fourth NCAA women’s golf championship Wednesday, May 22, 2024, against top-ranked Stanford at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad. The conference in its final days of existence secured all four spots in the semifinals of the NCAA women’s golf team championships at Omni’s La Costa Resort & Spa on Tuesday morning, the first time any conference has done that in the men’s or women’s events.
“It was a grind, I’m sure everyone saw that,” Stanford coach Anne Walker, whose team avenged a loss to USC in the semis last year, told Golf Channel. “It took a lot of patience and some unbelievable play coming down the stretch. Each team sends out five golfers for head-to-head match play, with the first to three points advancing. Stanford and USC each scored an early point, then sweated out the final three matches, all close as they headed to the final holes.
Fifth-ranked UCLA took a big step toward the final on an even longer putt, a 50-foot bomb over a ridge by Meghan Royal on the 15th hole for a 4-and-3 win against Ching-Tzu Chen. It came on a day when star Zoe Campos, a finalist for player of the year who was 9-0-1 in match play in a Bruins uniform, lost for the first time in her college career.