Arizona State’s Monica Vaughn took the NCAA Women’s Championship individual title at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Illinois this week. The course is home to NIU’s men and women golf teams and has repeatedly been recognized as one of Golf Digest’s “America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses” and Rolex’s “World’s Top 1,000 Golf Courses”.
Vaughn is a senior at ASU and is the sixth player to ever win a golf NCAA individual title for the University. Her lead came by surprise when she was four strokes behind with only four holes left to play. Her collegiate competitor, Wake Forest’s Jennifer Kupcho, stumbled on the 17th hole and Vaughn quickly took the lead with two birdies out of her final four holes. Monica is a proud member of the 2016 U.S. Curtis Cup team and has had 6 top-three showings in her final eight college events including a win at the NCAA Regional in Texas.
So far there have been a couple oddities that are making headlines during the 2017 NCAA golf championship and as we all know, you can’t fool Mother Nature!
Thankfully, Vaughn is smarter than your average bear, and wasn’t one of the two women assessed a two-stroke penalty for heading out for a bathroom break during play. When nature calls make sure you understand the rules. Two players, in separate incidences, left on a golf cart to go find the loo and the rules state “must not ride on any form of transportation during a stipulated round unless authorized.” Wow!
The original format for both men and women play include the first three days of stroke play which will determine the top 9 individuals and 15 teams, followed by one final day of 18-hole stroke play to decide the top 8 teams that will move to match play and the 72-hole individual champion. The team determination will be based on a match play format to include one day each of quarterfinalist and semifinalist play, with the finals played on the last day.
Another oddity, this time due to lightning strikes and torrential downpours, shortened the length of play and changed the stroke play portion from 72 holes to 54, with the low 8 teams advancing to match play (which resulted in 14 top teams not the planned 15 teams) and the low individual to be crowned the NCAA medalist. Wow, again!
There’s still a lot of play left to determine whether or not the Sun Devil teams will place in either the men’s or women’s championship, and word is still out on the male individual titlist. We’ll continue to watch with bated breath! Go, Sun Devils!
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