Nothing pointed to Arizona as the 2018 NCAA women’s golf champion. Really, nothing.
The Wildcats finished fourth in the Pac-10 behind legit NCAA championship contenders UCLA, Stanford and USC. More? Arizona then finished fourth in the NCAA Tallahassee regionals behind Alabama, Florida State and Furman. Yes, Furman.
And when four-days of individual stroke play concluded at the NCAA finals in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Arizona’s five golfers were stacked this way on the overall leaderboard:
2. Bianca Pagdanganan
48. Yu-Sang Hou
52. Sandra Nordaas
56. Haley Moore
76. Gigi Stoll
Coach Laura Ianello’s Wildcats had been playing at a deficit since Christmas Day five months earlier when the squad’s No. 2 player, Salpointe Catholic High School two-time state champion Krystal Quihuis, told Ianello she was leaving the team to pursue the LPGA Tour.
There was no time to find a replacement, especially for someone like Quihuis, who had been the Pac-12’s freshman of the year in 2016.
After four days of competition in Oklahoma, Arizona barely qualified for the field of 15 teams that would stage a one-day playoff to reach the eight-team match play finals. Then the UA established a new meaning for the word “barely.’’
At the 18th hole, Arizona was No. 9, trailing No. 8 Baylor by a stroke for the final berth in the match play finals. Pagdanganan, a junior transfer from Gonzaga, would need to eagle the par-5 18th hole to tie Baylor and force a playoff.
What were the odds of that?
Incredibly, Pagdanganan reached the par-5 in two shots and then, against the odds, made a 30-foot putt to force a sudden-death playoff against Baylor. Arizona won the playoff.
“In some ways, the pressure was off,’’ Ianello told me a few days later. “What we had overcome just to get to the match play was incredible.’’
Arizona upset No. 1 UCLA the next morning and No. 5 Stanford in the afternoon.
That put Ianello’s Cinderella Wildcats in the finals against No. 2 Alabama, which had been No. 1 most of the golf season behind players ranked Nos. 6, 10 and 13 in the nation.
Arizona players mob Haley Moore, center, after the Wildcats defeated Alabama for the national title in 2018.
By then, Arizona was awed by nothing. It split the first four matches against Alabama, meaning the final two golfers on the course — UA sophomore Haley Moore and Alabama All-American Lakareber Abe — would decide the national championship. It was a tense match that went to sudden death, requiring a 19th hole.
That’s when Moore made the putt of a lifetime — a 5-foot birdie — to give Arizona the national championship.
In the celebration that followed, TV microphones picked up Stoll saying “Is anyone NOT crying?’’
Moore wept on the green. So did Ianello and the other four Wildcat golfers as they embraced one another.
“It’s the best feeling in the world,’’ said Pagdanganan. “I’m so honored to have these girls as my teammates and to have met my coaches. They have made me a better person and player.’’
It was Arizona’s third NCAA women’s golf championship. The first two were achieved in 1996 under coach Rick LaRose and in 2000 under coach Todd McCorkle. The Wildcats had been a national-level program in the years since that ’00 championship, winning Pac-10/12 championships in 2001, 2002, 2005, 2010 and 2015, but it was Pagdanganan’s clutch eagle and Moore’s birdie-of-a-lifetime that restored them to No. 1 status.
A day after winning the title, the UA golfers flew to Phoenix and drove SUVs to Tucson, where a large crowd greeted them at the Jim Click Hall of Champions.
“So many things had to fall into place for us to win, we had no margin for error,’’ said Ianello, part of Arizona’s 2001 Pac-10 championship team. “In the last day or so I had to pinch myself a few times.’’
The 2018 team soon went its separate ways. Pagdanganan is now part of the LPGA Tour; she has played in 21 events over the last two seasons, earning $357,968. Stoll has been a regular member of the LPGA Symetra Tour. Moore has played 28 LPGA Tour events but is still trying to gain full-time privileges. Hou has played in six LPGA Tour events this year.
