Northwestern Is Top Seed in Team Play; Arizona State’s Vaughn Wins Championship
In a Monday full of drama, the Northwestern women’s golf team led the field and will be the top seed going into match play competition in the NCAA Division I Championship at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove.
Meannwhile, Arizona State senior Monica Vaughn won the individual title in a dramatic finish, birdying two of her final four holes to pass Wake Forest’s Jennifer Kupcho, who triple bogeyed the 17th.
Arizona State senior Monica Vaughn (CREDIT: GolfChannel)
The Wake Forest team didn’t qualify for this week’s event at Rich Harvest Farms, and Kupcho was seeking to become the first individual player to take home top honors without her team present since Stacy Lewis in 2007. She held a four-shot lead with five holes to go, and was still leading by two shots after finding the 17th fairway.
Vaughn is the sixth player from Arizona State to win the women’s individual title and the first since Azahara Munoz in 2008.
Northwestern finished the 54-hole team competition at 33 over, eight shots better than Stanford. Northwestern will face No. 8 seed Kent State in Tuesday’s quarterfinals, while Stanford will face Baylor in a rematch of the dramatic 2015 team final won by the Cardinal.
The other quarterfinal matches will pit No. 3 Arizona State against No. 6 Florida and No. 4 Ohio State against No. 5 Southern California.
North Carolina, which posted its team total early in Monday’s session, ended up one shot outside the match-play bubble when Kent State’s Michaela Finn saved par from a greenside bunker on her final hole to secure the eighth and final spot for the Golden Flashes.
The quarterfinals and semifinals will both be conducted Tuesday, with the top two teams facing off in the team final on Wednesday.
SOURCE: GolfChannel
Top 8 Team Scores
| POS | MOV | PLAYER | OVERALL | THRU | RND | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | TOT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | – |
 |
+33 | F | +10 | 301 | 298 | 298 | 897 | ||
| 2 | 1 |
 |
+41 | F | +8 | 311 | 298 | 296 | 905 | ||
| 3 | 6 |
 |
+45 | F | +1 | 311 | 309 | 289 | 909 | ||
| 4 | – |
 |
+49 | F | +15 | 311 | 299 | 303 | 913 | ||
| T5 | 7 |
 |
+50 | F | +4 | 320 | 302 | 292 | 914 | ||
| T5 | 2 |
 |
+50 | F | +8 | 315 | 303 | 296 | 914 | ||
| 7 | 2 |
 |
+53 | F | +18 | 311 | 300 | 306 | 917 | ||
| 8 | 6 |
 |
+55 | F | +24 | 303 | 304 | 312 | 919 |
