🏆 2026 NCAA National Champions

Stanford

defeats Southern California, 4.5 – 0.5

Match play final · Omni La Costa Resort & Spa · Wednesday, May 27

Fourth NCAA title for Stanford (2015, 2022, 2024, 2026) · Third-most all-time in women’s college golf

Stanford is a national champion again. The top-seeded Cardinal closed out a dominant week at Omni La Costa with a 4.5–0.5 win over Southern California in the match-play final, capturing their fourth NCAA Division I Women’s Golf national championship and their second in three years. Anne Walker’s program finished the tournament a perfect 3–0 in match play, never trailing in a team match, and got the job done on the same course where their 2025 title bid ended in a 3–2 loss to Northwestern one year earlier.

Sophomore Meja Örtengren put the first point on the board, dispatching USC’s Jasmine Koo 6&5 with a clinching birdie on the par-3 12th. Junior Paula Martín Sampedro made it 2–0 with a 3&2 win over Catherine Park, the player who had carried the Trojans all week. The clinching point came from senior Megha Ganne, who closed her match 4 up over Bailey Shoemaker to lift Stanford to three points and send Anne Walker’s program back to the trophy. Kelly Xu added a 1-up win over Elise Lee in the fourth completed match; Andrea Revuelta’s back-and-forth duel with Kylie Chong was halved on the official scoreboard once the team match was clinched.

Final Match Results

“The people. These players. You don’t get to Stanford without working hard and knowing how to be disciplined and put in long days. You have to be comfortable having a lofty goal and getting after it.” — Stanford head coach Anne Walker, on her program’s sustained run

A Run That Now Looks Like a Dynasty

Stanford has now won three national titles in the last five years (2022, 2024, 2026) and two of the last three. All four of the program’s championships have come in the match-play era. The Cardinal are also the first team to reach the match-play final in three straight seasons, and they improved to 19–7 all-time in NCAA match play. Only Arizona State (eight national titles) and Duke (seven) have won more women’s national championships.

There was a tidy bit of symmetry, too: Wednesday’s win came 11 years to the day after Stanford captured its first national championship in 2015 — also by a one-point match-play margin (3–2 over Baylor). And Stanford’s edge over USC in NCAA Championship match play moved to 3–1 with this result.

Örtengren, Sampedro and Ganne — The Three Who Closed It Out

The three Cardinal players who delivered the three winning points each closed strong all week. Örtengren went a perfect 3–0 in match play, picking up points for Stanford in the quarterfinal, semifinal and final — including a 4&3 comeback from three down in the semis against Eastern Michigan. Sampedro finished 2–0 in match play with wins in the quarterfinal and final. Ganne, the senior who finished second in stroke play behind Texas’s Farah O’Keefe, improved to 6–1 in match play this season and supplied the championship-clinching point.

Kelly Xu’s 1-up win to make it 4–0 carried its own weight in the history book: the senior finishes her Stanford career 7–1–0 in NCAA Championship match play, tied for the record for most career match-play victories.

“Winning a national championship has really been the only goal for us since last year. Every single day since last year has been working towards this moment.” — Stanford sophomore Meja Örtengren

USC’s Second Final in Four Years

Southern California reached the championship match for the second time in four years (also 2023, when they lost to Wake Forest). The Trojans got a strong week from senior Catherine Park, who shared the individual stroke-play lead through 54 holes and went 2–0 in Tuesday’s match-play rounds, and from a deep lineup that head coach Justin Silverstein leaned on all season. Wednesday simply got away from them early.

“Unfortunately, we got off to a slow start. We had some self-inflicted errors — I think we bogeyed five par-5’s, and against a team like this that doesn’t make many mistakes, you can’t give them that many holes in match play,” Silverstein said. “This is still one of the best seasons in the history of USC women’s golf, and they have a lot to be proud of.”

The Path to the Trophy

Individual Champion: Farah O’Keefe (Texas)

The week’s other trophy stayed in the host’s hands. Texas junior Farah O’Keefe captured the individual national championship by closing stroke play at 12 under — rounds of 69-69-68-70 — two clear of Stanford’s Megha Ganne. O’Keefe led the field in birdies and birdied her final two holes Monday to seal the medal. Duke freshman Rianne Malixi finished third at 9 under; USC’s Catherine Park was fourth.

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