2025/26 WOMEN'S GOLF pre-season and season news, results and discussion

[AztecBuff]

With women's golf being one of those Buff sports that has MANY tournaments in both the fall and spring semesters, I wanted to set up a thread that as normal we can use to cover anything that comes up on and off the course related to the team up through the Big 12 Championships (scheduled to begin April 23rd, 2026 in Dallas). (I'll give the NCAA Championships their own thread if/ when the Buffs' team earns a regional berth.)

I'm starting this thread now as the team has released its current (academic) year schedule (https://cubuffs.com/sports/womens-golf/schedule) Per that, the 1st tournament is scheduled to be in University Place (Seattle) Washington Sept. 15-16.

A post with the schedule as it now stands -




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Accompanying article - https://cubuffs.com/news/2025/8/20/womens-golf-womens-golf-schedule-set-for-2025-26

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Women’s Golf Schedule Set For 2025-26​

By: Troy Andre, Associate Director/Athletic Communications

BOULDER – The University of Colorado has announced the women's golf schedule for the 2025-26 season.

The Buffaloes have 11 events on their calendar – five in the fall portion of the season and six in the spring, culminating with the 2026 Big 12 Conference Championship. Eight of those tournaments will be return trips from last season for the Buffaloes, including all five fall events.

The Buffaloes open Sept. 15-16, at the Leadership and Golf Invitational at the Chambers Bay Golf Course in University Place, Wash.

Colorado returns to the Centennial State for the Colonel Wollenberg Ram Classic hosted by Colorado State, Sept. 22-23, at Ptarmigan in Fort Collins. The Buffaloes remain in the metro area two weeks later for the Ron Moore Intercollegiate, Oct. 3-5, at the University of Denver Golf Club in Highlands Ranch.

Colorado heads west to wrap up the fall at the Stanford Intercollegiate, Oct. 17-19, in Stanford, Calif., and the Nanea Invitational Oct. 27-29, at the Nanea Golf Club in Kailua-Kona, Hawai'i.

"We are playing some phenomenal championship courses, beginning at Chambers Bay, which has hosted a major championship in the U.S. Open," Colorado head coach Madeleine Sheils said. "Stanford is always a phenomenal test against some of the best teams in the country, and Nanea is at a top 100 golf course against a premier field.

"Then we couple that with being able to take the team to two events that are close to home, which is great for family, friends and supporters to be able to come and watch, while serving as a nice breather in terms of not expending extra energy on travel during the hectic fall season. We really like the balance these five tournaments provide, and it will set us up well for success."

Colorado opens the spring portion of the season with a return trip to Mexico to compete in the Collegiate Invitational at Guadalajara Country Club, hosted by Virginia, Jan. 30-31. Like last season, the unique 54-hole event is scheduled to feature 27 holes each day. Overall, it will be Colorado's fifth international trip.

The Buffaloes return to the states for their first new location of the season, participating in the Thunderbird Intercollegiate at the Tucson Country Club in Tucson, Ariz., Feb. 9-10. Colorado has played in Tucson numerous times during its history, but this will be the first at the Tucson Country Club course.

Following the Thunderbird Collegiate, Colorado will finish the regular season tour with three tournaments in California. The Buffaloes begin that stretch at the Causeway Invitational for the second-straight season, played at the Del Paso Country Club in Sacramento, Feb. 23-24.

Colorado's second new locale of the season comes next with the GameAbove Invitational at the Rolling Hills Country Club in Rolling Hills Estates, Calif., March 9-10.

Colorado wraps up regular season action by hosting, along with Oregon, the 12th Chevron Silverado Showdown, April 6-8, at the Silverado Resort & Spa North Course in Napa, Calif.

"I did change things up a little bit (in the spring) and decided to take us to some new events, namely Arizona's event in Tucson, which I'm excited to see," Sheils said. "I think it'll be a premier, largely Big 12 field. And then USC and Eastern Michigan's event (GameAbove Invitational) at Rolling Hills is another top-class golf course that should really challenge and push us as we get ready for the postseason against several of the country's top teams.

"My goal is to make sure that our student-athletes feel like they get to test themselves against the best in the country on a regular basis, and they get to play championship golf courses. And our schedule really does that, but it does it in a way that also balances academics and travel so that they can be successful."

The 2026 Big 12 Championship is set for April 23-25, at the Dallas Athletic Club. NCAA Regional play is set for May 11-3 at six sites with the NCAA Championship scheduled for May 22-27 at the Omni La Costa Champions Golf Course in Carlsbad, Calif.
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[AztecBuff]

Preview in front of the team's 1st fall tourney (being held just outside Seattle) scheduled to be competed tomorrow and Tuesday - https://cubuffs.com/news/2025/9/14/womens-golf-new-look-buffs-open-season-washington

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Ellen O'Shaughnessy Photo by: Tony Harman

New Look Buffs Open Season In Washington​

By: Troy Andre, Associate Director/Athletic Communications

BOULDER – A new year, a new team for the Colorado women's golf program.

The Buffaloes saw over half of their roster change from a year ago, with three players returning and four newcomers added. While Colorado head coach Madeleine Sheils is still getting to know this year's edition, there is a feeling of excitement on the course for the Buffaloes.

Colorado is set for its season debut at the Leadership and Golf Invitational beginning Sept. 15 at the Chambers Bay Golf Course in University Place, Wash.

"I've been so pleased with the start of the season," Sheils said. "This group is hard-working and really committed to being great teammates and bringing their best effort every day. It's been super fun to coach them, just in these three weeks, and I'm excited to get started in tournament play and see how the work we're putting in is starting to pay off."

Co-hosted by Seattle U and Washington, the 54-hole event begins with the first two rounds on Monday, followed by a final 18 holes on Tuesday, Sept. 16. Both days will feature a shotgun start, beginning at 9 a.m. MT.

Three of Colorado's five golfers in the lineup at Chambers Bay will be making their Buffaloes debut, including true freshmen Brenna Higgins and Teemapat Pateetin. Junior transfer Maya McVey is the third newcomer, bringing two years of top-level NCAA Division II experience as she looks to raise her level of competition.

Junior Carolyn Fuller and sophomore Ellen O'Shaughnessy round out Colorado's lineup for the week.

"Everybody has a unique history, background and level of experience," Sheils said. "Each one on this team has won at some level and that comes with golf knowledge. I know that I will be learning a lot about them and their games and their approaches this whole fall season. It really takes a lot of time to get to know a player and the way that they think and react and whatnot in different situations on the golf course. I'm going to definitely be doing a lot of learning about this team in the first five events."

The introductory resume of the Buffaloes' newcomers is intriguing to say the least. Higgins makes her collegiate debut, having won two Colorado individual state championships and four team titles at Valor Christian along with an appearance at the 2025 USGA Junior Girls Championship. Pateetin, a native of Thailand, is ranked 517th in the current World Amateur Golf Rankings and won a Thai Junior Tour title in July, which included a career-best round of 64.

McVey was a two-time Women's Golf Coaches Association All-Central Region pick at Central Missouri, helping the Jennies to a runner-up finish at the 2025 NCAA II championships.

As for the returners, they have proven to be able to hold their own as well.

Fuller arguably had the best summer of all the Buffaloes. She won the Colorado Golf Association Stroke Play championship and the Arizona U.S. Amateur qualifier and had top 20 finishes at the prestigious Southwest Amateur and the Irish Women's Amateur Open. Fuller, along with her new teammate in McVey, competed at the 2025 U.S. Women's Amateur, missing out on qualifying for the match play rounds by just two strokes.

O'Shaughnessy had the third-best freshman season by stroke average in team history at 74.83 over 23 rounds. Her Colorado career began at this very same Chambers Bay course, where she proceeded to shoot a 69 in her initial collegiate round at last year's Leadership and Golf Invitational.

O'Shaughnessy is ready to take that next step with lessons learned from last season in her back pocket.

"I learned so much over the whole of last year," O'Shaughnessy said. "I had some really good tournaments, some not so good ones, but I feel like you learn from them all.

"I remember really enjoying Chambers Bay. You have some good birdie opportunities, and there's some really testing holes that you have to be really careful on and really have your decision made on how you're going play it before in the practice rounds. The 36-hole day is really long day, so it's always good to have your plans set up in stone beforehand, which I think really helped me last year."

A links-style course, Chambers Bay will typically play just under 6,100 yards for a par 72. Colorado opened last season at this same event, finishing right in the middle of the pack, placing eighth out of 16 teams. The Buffaloes started out well, shooting 6-under par, 282 in the first round, which would stick as their second-best round of the season, before ending up at 20-over, 884 through 54-holes.

McVey and Fuller saw a similar course set up at the U.S. Women's Amateur, played at Bandon Dunes in Oregon this past August. Throw in the fall weather in the Pacific Northwest, and Chambers Bay will serve up its own unique challenges.

"Managing the wind and the conditions out there is a key, because it certainly can be rainy and windy," Sheils said. "So just remaining patient and positive, no matter the conditions. And then Course Management is a huge key out there too, because it's a links-style course where you can get all kinds of bounces, and you need to think about the clubs you were selecting, and how they react coming into greens and fairway landing zones."

The 2025 Leadership and Golf Invitational once again feature 16 teams, mostly from the western half of the country. For the first two rounds, Colorado will be grouped with San Diego State, Eastern Michigan and UC Davis. With the shotgun start, those groups will begin between the 10th and 13th tees at 9 a.m. MT.
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Leaderboard - https://scoreboard.clippd.com/tournaments/239367/scoring/team

 

[AztecBuff]

The team, led by one of its freshwomen, is in a tie for 6th (out of 16 teams competing) heading into today's final round.




Article - https://cubuffs.com/news/2025/9/15/womens-golf-buffs-in-sixth-after-chambers-bay-marathon

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Buffs In Sixth After Chambers Bay Marathon​

By: Troy Andre, Associate Director/Athletic Communications

UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. – Golf will never be mistaken for a sprint, but there are days that can be compared to a marathon in terms of endurance.

Colorado women's golf christened the fall season with one of those outings, finding themselves tied for sixth at 20-over-par, 596, after two rounds of the Leadership and Golf Invitational played at Chambers Bay Golf Course.

From tee to green, Chambers Bay plays at just under 6,100 yards. But the sprawling links-style course is laid out over a wide expanse in the Pacific Northwest just south of Seattle, with elevation changes throughout. Those factors led to an 11-hour day out on the course for the Buffaloes to tee off the season.

"There's no great way to prepare for your first 36-hole day as a collegiate golfer, but especially not when that first 36-hole day is Chambers Bay," Colorado head coach Madeleine Sheils said. "It's such a marathon hike. It's one of those things that you truly have to go through it to learn from it."

As the nature of fatigue might suggest, Colorado's better of the two rounds came in the morning. The Buffaloes were in fifth place after the first 18 holes, carding an 8-over, 296. Colorado shot four strokes higher in the second round at 12-over, 300, dropping one spot in the standings.

Still, the Buffaloes find themselves right in the mix for a top-four finish. Colorado, along with Cal Poly, is two strokes out of fourth, behind Grand Canyon and only one shot back of former Pac-12 rival Washington.

The top three teams put considerable distance between themselves and the rest of the field. Eastern Michigan was 8-under on the day, four strokes better than San Jose State, the only two programs in the red. Oregon State is in third at 2-over, a full 16 strokes better than Grand Canyon.

"I saw a lot of good golf out of the team this morning and during parts of the second round," Sheils said. "Especially during the morning, there was a lot of solid golf played and everyone played good for at least some stretches throughout the day. Ending up at 20-over isn't exactly where we want to be necessarily, but what was more important for us today was making sure we're learning from that first 36-hole day on a big golf course. I thought they put in a really solid effort."

True freshman Teemapat Pateetin led the Buffaloes with a 36-hole score of 2-over, 146. Pateetin shot a 74 in the opening round and came back through the course in the afternoon to card the team's best round of the day at even-par 72. She had the hole of the day late in the second round with an eagle on the 480-yard par-5 fourth. Pateetin reached the green in two on the moderately distanced but very uphill fourth hole and sank the putt for the team's first eagle of the young season.

For Pateetin, a native of Thailand, this was only her second time playing 36 holes in one day of competition – and first without a caddie. She enters the final round just three shots out of the top five.

"I was impressed with her effort today," Sheils said. "She said after the round that she was proud of the way she let things go; she had some bad holes, but didn't let them get her down. She just kept marching on and committed to her process of figuring out exactly what was called for on each shot and it paid off for her. I couldn't be happier for her to kick off her college career with such a great day."
...

Colorado will pair with Washington, Long Beach State and Cal Poly in Tuesday's final round. Those groupings will begin between the sixth and ninth holes with the shotgun start at 9 a.m. MT. The final round will be streamed live at https://babygrandegolf.com.
...
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[AztecBuff]

Sounds like the team had a rough final few holes (per the article linked to below they were +1 for the final round through 14 holes and then went +13 over the final 4) and went from ~5th to 9th, but almost ALL of the season remains for the young*** Buffs to build up experience and endurance, and they still finished in the middle of the pack.
(***The team's roster has no seniors, 3 freshmen, 2 sophomores and 2 juniors.)

Article - https://cubuffs.com/news/2025/9/16/womens-golf-buffs-finish-ninth-in-washington

 

[AztecBuff]

The team is just teeing off now at a tourney up the roads in Fort Collins that is 3 rounds over the next 2 days.

Preview - https://cubuffs.com/news/2025/9/21/womens-golf-buffs-look-to-build-on-ram-classic-success

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Vanessa Ngo Photo by: Tony Harman

Buffs Look To Build On Ram Classic Success​

By: Troy Andre, Associate Director/Athletic Communications

BOULDER – There's no place like – close to - home.

Colorado women's golf continues its fall season this week at the Colonel Wollenberg Ram Classic at the Ptarmigan Golf Course just outside of Fort Collins. The 54-hole event hosted annually by Colorado State begins on Monday, Sept. 22, with the first two rounds followed by the final round on Tuesday, Sept. 23.

While Ptarmigan isn't exactly in the Buffaloes' backyard, the team has had quite a bit of success there over the years.

Colorado has won this event twice, in 2006 and 2010, and placed second six times, including in 2023, where the Buffaloes recorded their second-best round scores for 18 holes (275), 36 (554) and 54 (836) in team history.

"We were talking about this as a team, that it's fun where there's about six holes out here, especially the par 5s that are very scorable, and so you need to take advantage of those in order to be successful," Colorado head coach Madeleine Sheils said. "But at the same time, there's also about six holes that you need to be paying close attention to, where you're not hitting driver off the tee, and there are a couple of tricky greens. As it does every week, it involves coming up with a solid process and then continuing to commit to it throughout all three rounds. But I certainly think that a key to scoring well out here is taking advantage of those par 5s and being good with your wedges throughout the whole course, because it does play on the shorter side for us."

Colorado is also hoping to take lessons learned from the season-opening Leadership & Golf Invitational held last week at Chambers Bay, south of Seattle. The Buffaloes played well in spots, eventually tying for ninth out of 16 teams at 34-over-par, but not to the level they are collectively expecting. With the first grueling 36-hole marathon of the season under its belt, Colorado brought that experience into a solid week of practice.

"Each person had something different they knew they needed to work on to get ready for this week," Sheils said. "There was a lot of individual emphasis on the different parts of their game. Having that experience of that 36-hole day under their belt will serve us well, and the walk this week will certainly feel easy compared to Chambers Bay, which is nice, but we know that we need to do a better job of maintaining focus for all 36 holes. We talked about having a mental reset in the middle of the day, like the last three of the first 18 and the first three holes of the second, just to make sure we're staying present all the way through the last shot of each round."

Another advantage this week is that all seven golfers on Colorado's roster will compete at the Ram Classic, five contributing to the team effort, along with two individuals. The Ram Classic is the first of two-straight events in the Rocky Mountain Region, followed by Denver's Ron Moore Intercollegiate, Oct. 3-5, in Highlands Ranch.

"During the fall season we play five events in seven weeks, and so not having to get on a plane and travel and change time zones for two of those is so nice for the team," Sheils said. "It's also nice to be able to give ourselves a little bit of break when it comes to doing math on the altitude conversion for how far the ball flies. So we feel really confident with our numbers going into these two weeks, which sets us at ease. Another huge plus is that CSU allows us to take all seven players here, so every single player is getting tournament experience, which we really like to see, and we'll be able to have six next week at DU so it's really helpful for the team academically and energy-wise, and to get everybody competitive experience."

Freshman Teemapat Pateetin was Colorado's top golfer at last week's Leadership and Golf Invitational, tying for 20th at 6-over, 222. She will be the Buffaloes' top-seeded golfer at the Ram Classic joined for the team rounds by Maya McVey, Carolyn Fuller, Brenna Higgins and Vanessa Ngo, who is making her season debut.

Sophomore Ellen O'Shaughnessy and freshman Ananthi Vivek, set for her first collegiate tournament, will compete as individuals.

This year's Ram Classic will feature 13 teams, including Big 12 Conference rival BYU and former league foes in Washington and Nebraska. Both days feature a shotgun start beginning at 8:30 a.m. MT. For Monday's first two rounds, Colorado's team contingent will pair with Colorado State and Cal Poly between the first and third tees. The tournament is open to the public and the Buffaloes encourage fans in the region to come out and support the team!
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Leaderboard - https://scoreboard.clippd.com/tournaments/239598/scoring/team

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