The Arizona women’s golf team is back in familiar territory: the NCAA postseason.
It’s such a familiar feeling — this is the Wildcats’ 31st appearance in the regionals — that coach Laura Ianello said it’s become expected and is the standard that the Wildcats are competing for championships year in and year out.
The Wildcats are vying for their fourth national title this year; they won in 1996, 2000 and 2018, and were runner-up in 1992 and 2002. UA has finished in the top 10 three times since the 2018 title — in 2019, 2021 and 2023.
Arizona tees off at the Spanish Trail Country Club on Monday, as the No. 3 seed in the 12-team Las Vegas Regional. The Wildcats have an eye toward playing well enough to make it to NCAA championship rounds at Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California, from May 17-22. The top five teams from each regional advance to the championship rounds.
This season feels special for Ianello. It’s not only what the Wildcats have accomplished so far on the course, but also their makeup off the course, as well.
The Wildcats have finished in the top 10 in every tournament this year. They won the Gator Invitational as a team and individually (Nena Wongthanavimok). Gile Bite Starkute won the Match in the Desert and Carolina Melgrati finished in the top-10 in four consecutive events — the first Wildcat to accomplish that in five years.
“If you look at the years like especially like in ’18 when we won the championship you know, we were winning all the time,” Ianello said. “There have been years where we’ve played really horribly and had terrible finishes, but then we still finished in the final eight. I think so much of it comes down to the women on your team and what they pour into pour into it this time of year.
“I will say this is probably one of my greatest teams. They work together, they push each other they’ve enjoyed the process. They’re really, really good friends. And I think that that means so much to these women that they want to do something special together. We struggled this last week at Pac-12s (finishing sixth), but you know not having Carolina there with an illness, you could feel that the team was sad because they were worried about her.
“But they really rallied the final two rounds together to have a decent finish. But so much of it it’s not magic. It’s just whether or not you have girls, I think that are bought in to wanting to do great things. You either have it some years or you don’t, and this year I can honestly say that we do have it.”
While Ianello didn’t disclose Melgrati’s illness, she did say that she was on the mend, was practicing and was expected to be ready for the regionals.
Gile Bite Starkute pumps her fist after sinking the putt that beat top-seeded Stanford in the NCAA women’s golf quarterfinals in May 2021. Three years later, the fifth-year senior is ready to help the Wildcats on another deep postseason run.
Together as one team
Much of this squad’s togetherness can be traced back to a few things. One is that they all stayed at Arizona. The only new face on the team is freshman Charlotte Back. (Back shot a 64 in the second round of the Pac-12s — the lowest round ever at the championship.)
Another is their leader, Starkute. The fifth-year senior from Vilnius, Lithuania, is as steady as they come.
Starkute has always been the glue with incremental improvements each year. But this season, her performances have gone to another level.
She has the third-lowest scoring average in UA history (71.25) — only Vivian Hou (70.68) and Lorena Ochoa (70.13) are better. She started the season with three consecutive top-10 finishes and she also tied Back’s 64 for lowest round in UA history in her win at the Match of the Desert. She earned Pac-12 Player of the Week for that performance and was also an all-conference team selection.
One final run
Ianello said she saw the difference when Starkute returned from LPGA’s qualifying school last fall. That’s when Starkute saw close up who she will be competing against as a professional and how dialed in they are. That helped her focus on specific things this season. Right now, that is putting.
Another key to not only Starkute, but also her teammates making huge strides in their game this season falls directly on UA’s performance enhancement coach, Chris Allen. Allen has had such an impact on this squad, that his name popped up first when any Wildcat shares what has gone into their successful season.
“He likes to tell us that there’s a lot of blocks in our head that happen when you do cardio — you think that your body can’t do it when it really can,” Starkute. “… Sometimes when we were doing a trap or deadlift and I thought that was my max. He would help me do even more weight than suddenly you realize that you are capable of more than you thought.
“I think that also translates onto the golf course because we have to face adversity — we have to face bad weather conditions or something is not going your way — you realize that it’s all in your head. And all you have to do is take away those blocks.”
No matter what happens in the NCAA Tournament, Starkute has already made her mark on the Arizona program. Whether it was on the course, like in her sophomore year — sinking a 40-foot birdie to beat Stanford in the 2021 NCAA quarterfinals and secure the Wildcats spot in the semifinals — or in the classroom as this season’s Pac-12’s Women’s Golf Scholar of the Year and last year’s CSC Academic All-District Team member. And especially as a leader for the past few years.
The golfer her teammates call “Grandma,” because of how she takes care of everyone, has one final run to go, and no one wants to think about what happens when it’s over. Wongthanavimok couldn’t get many words out, except to say, “I don’t know how to express how much … when she leaves it’s going to be so different,” before tearing up.
Starkute added, “This place is pretty special to me. And now that we are a family … this season is not over yet. We still have a good three weeks, so I’m happy about that but it is definitely really, really hard to leave.”
William M. "Bill" Clements Golf Center Dedication | April 28, 2024 (Arizona Athletics YouTube)
