Women’s college golf is continually getting deeper, as evidenced by the number of new teams that are constantly coming into the mix in the postseason.
The past decade not only saw breakout stars, but more opportunities. For one thing, a women’s player of the year award came into the mix in 2014 with the creation of the ANNIKA Award. Like the Haskins Award, it’s voted on by players coaches and media.
Three of the women on this list have won that award — some multiple times. Others broke program record, NCAA records, racked up titles or led their teams to NCAA glory.
These are the best 10 women’s college golfers of the decade.
10. Bronte Law, UCLA (2013-2016)
Law won seven times in three and a half seasons as a Bruin (which is a program record), and almost half of those came in her junior season. That year ended with the ANNIKA Award as well as the top spot in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings. Over the course of her college career, Law shaved three shots off her scoring average.
9. Stephanie Kono, UCLA (2008-2011)
The soft-spoken Kono was a steadying force for the Bruins in a 2010-11 season that ended with a national title. Kono contributed to the team score more than 90 percent of the time that season with her sole win coming at the NCAA Regional. Other highlights from Kono’s three and a half years as a Bruin included winning the PING/ASU title as a freshman by making a 50-foot putt on the 54th hole to also give the Bruins the team title.
8. Stephanie Meadow, Alabama (2010-2014)
The Northern Irishwoman’s Alabama campaign was remarkably consistent. She ended each of four seasons in Tuscaloosa as one of the top 11 players in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings. She was No. 2 at the end of her sophomore and junior seasons. In the 2012-13 season, she also maintained the lowest season scoring average of any female collegian in the country.
Meadow was hugely influential in a period of Alabama women’s golf history that established the Crimson Tide as one of the top programs in the country. In her four-year career, 94 of her 100 rounds counted toward the team score. Meadow played a crucial role in the program’s first NCAA title in 2012.
7. Mariah Stackhouse, Stanford (2012-2016)
The lasting image of Stackhouse comes from the 2015 NCAA Women’s Championship, when the then-junior won the clinching point for Stanford on the first extra hole of the televised title match. It was the first time the tournament was broadcast on TV and also the first time the NCAA title was decided by match play. (Stackhouse singlehandedly validated both of those decisions.)
Stackhouse committed four years to the Cardinal when many opponents were peeling off for the pro ranks. She won four times (all in the first half of her college career) and looked invincible when, as a freshman, she fired a 10-under 61 at Stanford’s home tournament.
6. Annie Park, USC (2013-2015)
Park also earns a sub-award here for best newcomer of the decade. As a first-semester freshman in the spring of 2013, Park swept the postseason (Pac 12s, NCAA regionals and the NCAA Women’s Championship). The Trojans rode her to a team title that year in a runaway. Park’s ballstriking was jaw-dropping. She overpowered the University of Georgia Course in Athens, Georgia, at NCAAs, going 10 under to win by six.
The 5-foot, 9-inch Park was the definition of a short in the arm for USC, but she could never quite repeat the magic of that freshman season. She stayed two more full seasons, winning two more times for a career total of six individual titles before departing for the LPGA.
5. Lindy Duncan, Duke (2009-2013)
Getting into the individual record books at Duke is a tall order for a women’s golfer. Still, Duncan’s career scoring average of 72.10 put her in second place in Blue Devil history. Duncan won six times and was consistently one of the best players in the game. She was a top-10 machine, finishing in that category 32 times over her career.
Duncan finished her junior season at the top of Golfweek’s rankings, and never finished any season ranked worse than 14th. She was the individual runner-up at the 2013 NCAA Women’s Championship as a senior.
4. Andrea Lee, Stanford (2016-2019)
It might be awhile until another Stanford player notches nine career victories. It’s more than twice as many as Mariah Stackhouse, who also appears on this list, won in four years on the roster. Lee got there in three and a half.
The Southern California native excelled in every aspect as a student-athlete at the academically rigorous Stanford, where she majored in science, technology and society. She was the WGCA Freshman of the Year in 2017 and an ANNIKA Award finalist the next spring. Teammates call Lee a “machine,” and with her on the roster, Stanford kept alive its streak of NCAA match-play berths.
3. Maria Fassi, Arkansas (2015-2019)
Fassi was a 10-time individual champion for the Razorbacks, and No. 10 happened to be the NCAA title on her home course in Fayetteville. Fassi is also freaky long, which gave her a huge advantage most places she teed it up. What the passionate Mexican, who often played in big aviator sunglasses, added in the team room was probably just as important as the scores she was contributing on the course. Bonus points for Fassi for finishing her college career even after earning her LPGA card at the Q-Series.
2. Jennifer Kupcho, Wake Forest (2015-2019)
Kupcho always seemed to turn up with her best game when the stakes were highest, like in the postseason. She had a legitimate chance at the NCAA individual title as a freshman and sophomore before finally winning it as a junior (and in doing so, putting aside some scar tissue from the previous year). Despite the fact that she had done about all there was to do in college golf, Kupcho still honored her commitment to her team and came back to finish her senior year, LPGA card in hand.
In all, Kupcho won nine times at Wake Forest – the second-most in Demon Deacon history – and guided the program through a few lean years and back to prosperity. Wake Forest was runner-up at the NCAA Women’s Championship in Kupcho’s final start with the team.
1. Leona Maguire, Duke (2014-2018)
Maguire owns several NCAA records, which makes her go down not just as the best female collegian of the past decade, but one of the best in history. Throughout the course of her college career, Maguire had 87 rounds of even par or better and 32 rounds in the 60s – the most in NCAA history. She also owns the lowest stroke average in NCAA history (70.97) among players who logged 100 or more rounds.
All told, Maguire won 10 times and finished in the top 10 a total of 35 times. She was voted by her peers (along with college coaches and media) as the ANNIKA Award winner after her freshman and junior seasons, becoming the first two-time winner of the award (a feat later repeated by Fassi).
