Women's Golf Ready for 39th NCAA Championship Appearance

TEMPE, Ariz. – No. 7 Sun Devil Women's Golf team prepares to play at Karsten Creek Golf Club May 9-11, making their 29th consecutive NCAA Regional appearance, competing every year since the Regional postseason format was created in 1993.
 
The Sun Devils are one of just eight Division I Women's Golf teams to earn a spot at NCAA Regionals every year for the past 29 seasons. This puts the Arizona State program in elite company, as only the following teams have made an appearance in a Regional for at least 21 consecutive seasons:

• Arizona State, Arizona, Duke, Florida, USC, Stanford, UCLA, Wake Forest (29)
• Purdue (24)
• Pepperdine, South Carolina (23)
• Kent State (21)

The program has claimed or shared a total of five Regional team championships, with the last two coming during the midst of National Championship runs in 2009 & 2017. A season ago, the Sun Devils had an impressive showing at the Columbus Regional, finishing tied for second on their way to reaching NCAA Match Play.
 
Arizona State will be the No. 2 seed in a region that features host and No. 1 seed Oklahoma State. Baylor received the No. 3 seed while Auburn claimed the No. 4 seed. In order of seed, the other Stillwater Regional participants are No. 5 Michigan State, No. 6 Clemson, No. 7 Campbell, No. 8 Furman, No. 9 NC State, No. 10 California, No. 11 Tulane, and No. 12 Illinois State.

In the first year of the new regional format, six sites were selected instead of the typical four. This means ASU needs to finish in the Top-4 of the Stillwater Regional (12 teams) in order to clinch a berth in the NCAA Championship and advance to Grahyawk.

The Stillwater Regional includes four programs who won their respective conference championship - Campbell (Big South), Furman (Southern), Tulane (American Athletic), and Illinois State (Missouri Valley).

Tee times for the first day of the Stillwater Regional site have been announced, with the Sun Devils partaking in a practice round today. Along with a pair of Big 12 programs in Oklahoma State and Baylor, Arizona State will officially start the regional as their first round begins on the 1st hole at 6:00 a.m. MST, with a new competitor teeing-off every 11 minutes.
 

 
Subsequent tee times for the second and final rounds of the Stillwater Regional for teams, players within teams as well as individual competitors will be re-paired based on round one scores.

The competitive Stillwater Regional boasts six Golfstat Top-25 teams, including No. 6 Oklahoma State, No. 7 Arizona State, No. 17 Baylor, and No. 19 Auburn. The regional also has its fair share of star power, with nine of the Top-40 individuals in the Golfstat Player Rankings competing in Stillwater. Arizona State's own Alexandra Forsterling is the top-ranked player in the regional, coming in at No. 3. 

The individual qualifiers in Stillwater will be Lilly Thomas (Tulsa), Kiana Oshiro (Oral Roberts), Sarah Bell (Oral Roberts), Ellen Nicholas (Incarnate Word), Kennedy Pedigo (SMU), Kristen Giles (Drake).

Karsten Creek Golf Club is home to the Oklahoma State Golf programs. It was designed by Tom Fazio and honored as the Best New Public Course for 1994 by Golf Digest Magazine. The golf course's first college event was the Karsten Creek Collegiate in 1996, only two years after its opening. Karsten Creek then played host to the NCAA Central Regional in May of 2001 before serving as the host of the 2002 Ping/Golfweek Preview. More recently, Karsten Creek once again hosted the NCAA Men's Golf Championships in 2011 and 2018, where thousands of spectators gathered to watch the best collegiate golfers in the country.

The other five regional sites are are Albuquerque, New Mexico, Stanford, California, Franklin, Tennessee, Tallahassee, Florida, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Nine of 11 Pac-12 teams made NCAA Regionals, a testament to the strength of the best conference in women's golf, with four teams receiving Top-6 seeds led by No. 1 seeds Oregon and Stanford.
 
Each of six regionals features 12 teams and four teams per regional (24 total) will advance to NCAA Championships May 20-25 at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz . For more information on the NCAA Championships hosted by Arizona State University and The Thunderbirds, visit the following link.
 
The Sun Devil Women's Golf program is looking to add to their record 35 appearances in the NCAA Championship. The top three individuals at each regional not from qualifying teams (12 total) will also advance to Scottsdale.

Golf Channel will provide highlights from regional play of both championships leading up to coverage of the 2022 championships. GOLF Channel will provide live coverage of the final day of individual championship play on May 23 as well as the team match play on May 24-25 for the NCAA Women's Golf Championship.  See GOLF Channel full programming schedule.
 
HOW TO FOLLOW
Live results for the regional will be available here. For the latest updates and information on the Sun Devil Women's Golf program, follow our Twitter/Instagram accounts (@SunDevilWGolf), like our Facebook page (facebook.com/sundevilwgolf/), and visit our website (thesundevils.com).
 
All-Time Arizona State Regionals Finishes
1993 – 1st
1994 – 3rd
1995 – T1st
1996 – 5th
1997 – 1st
1998 – 2nd
1999 – 3rd
2000 – 4th
2001 – 6th
2002 – T6th
2003 – 5th
2004 – 7th
2005 – 4th
2006 – T4th
2007 – 3rd
2008 – 2nd
2009 – 1st
2010 – 2nd
2011 – 3rd
2012 – T6th
2013 – 5th
2014 – 3rd
2015 – 9th
2016 – 8th
2017 – 1st
2018 – T4th 
2019 – 5th
2020 – N/A
2021 – T-2nd
2022 - ????