No. 6 Oregon women’s golf finished ninth at the Big Ten Championships at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale, Calif. on April 26. Tong An had the best finish at the tournament, placing tied for 20th.

Notably the Ducks were without star junior Kiara Romero, who was competing at the Chevron Championship, an LPGA major. Romero did not make the final cut at the tournament after placing 98th after a five-over par second round stopped any momentum she had following her one-under first round.

In Glendale, An started the tournament with a solid one over par performance, which she backed up by shooting par in round two, which put her in ninth place. Her third round was where things got rocky where she bogeyed five times with a double bogey on the second hole which dropped her 11 spots on the leaderboard with a final score of eight over par.

Darae Chung and Sophie Han fared similarly in the first round with scores of two and three-over par before their score cards fell off a cliff in round two after shooting five and eight over respectively. Chung and Han both managed to climb back up in the standings after they both shot three-over par to finish 25th (+10) and 42nd (+14) respectively. 

Annika Ishiyama opened the tournament on the bottom of the leaderboard, shooting six-over par in the first round. She shot two-over in the second before a four-over par finish in the final round put her in 36th place to finish ahead of Han.

In one of her worst performances of the year, Karen Tsuru finished in 50th place, a far cry from her seventh place finish at the Chevron Collegiate earlier this year. Tsuru shot four-over in both the first and second rounds before dropping 13 spots on the leaderboard with a seven over par final round.

While it wouldn’t be fair to say that the Ducks could have finished higher with Romero, it does put the Ducks’ ceiling throughout their postseason up in the air. It’s a no-brainer career move to try and compete at the highest level, but it will be interesting to see how her potential absences impact the team’s performance going forward.

Next on the schedule is the 2026 NCAA women’s golf regionals. On April 29, Oregon’s matchup will be revealed during the selection show, which will air at 1 p.m. PST. While the opponents are yet to be revealed, it’s worth mentioning that the Ducks, who are currently ranked sixth in the nation, lost to six teams not in the top 25 at the Big Ten Championship.

Powerhouse No. 2 USC took home the trophy behind exceptional play from Jasmine Koo (-3), which was expected, given that they are the highest-ranked Big Ten program. The interesting part is that No. 32 Ohio State and No. 45 Purdue both finished over 15 strokes ahead of Oregon, despite not being top-ranked teams. It’s also worth noting that only one ranked team, No. 30 Northwestern, finished below Oregon in the tournament.