No. 7 Oregon women’s golf took its impressive roster down to The Farms Golf Club in San Diego for the San Diego State Classic. The Ducks finished third in the team competition, nine strokes behind No. 6 South Carolina and eight strokes behind No. 23 Virginia. Oregon finished one stroke ahead of Georgia. 

The story of the tournament was freshman phenom Kiara Romero taking her second win in just five matches of stroke-play. She is the seventh player in Oregon history to win multiple tournaments in a season and just the third true-freshman to do it

She shot 69-70-68 – 207 (-9) on the weekend, which was four strokes ahead of Virginia’s Amanda Sambach. Romero was the best out of 63 golfers. 

Romero played outstandingly in San Diego. Her 12 birdies tied for second-most in the tournament, and she was statistically the best out of all golfers on both Par 3s and Par 4s. 

She was the only golfer in the tournament to shoot in the 60s in more than one round, and on the opening day of the week, Romero had her first hole-in-one. 

Aside from Romero, the team performance was supportive enough to thrust the Ducks up the team leaderboard. 

Senior Minori Nagano tied with Denver’s Katarina Drocarova and San Diego State’s Anna Lina Otten for 18th in the tournament with a nine-over performance. Senior Ching-Tzu Chen added a 14-over weekend, which tied her for 30th with Georgia’s Napat Lertsadwattana. 

After them, Ashleigh Park tied for 38th, with a 17-over tournament, and freshman Ting-Hsuan Huang finished in 50th, 26-over for the weekend. 

Oregon jumped out to a hot start in its first tournament of the spring, placing third out of 12 teams. This, along with the emergence of Kiara Romero as one of the nation’s best golfers, will be a fantastic foundation to build off for the rest of the season. 

What will be important to the team’s success is the ability of players other than Romero to shoot below par. That was shown at times by Park and Nagano, who each had a round during the tournament where they shot par-or-better. 

Park shot a one-under 71 in her second round while Nagano shot an even 72 in her second round. 

The Ducks look to the first week in March for their trip down to Long Cove Club for the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate in Hilton Head Island, SC. 

Final Scorecard: Weekend total (Par), place in individual standings

Kiara Romero: 207 (-9), 1st

Minori Nagano: 225 (+9), T-18th

Ching-Tzu Chen: 230 (+14), T-30th

Ashleigh Park: 233 (+17), T-38th

Ting-Hsuan Huang: 242 (+26), 50th

Oregon: 889 (+25), 3rd