South Carolina women's golf returns to NCAA Championship with high expectations: 'It's an excited group'

It wasn’t the outcome they wanted. But in a way, it was what they needed to go through to get back here.

In its fourth straight NCAA Championship appearance last season, the South Carolina women’s golf team endured a tough weekend. The Gamecocks came in with high expectations, only to find themselves in 20th place and +17 after two days.

It only got worse as they finished 23rd and +40 by day three. They missed the cut to advance to match play and took the long cross-country flight back to Columbia as the season came to an end.

“We always learn from our lessons,” senior Louise Rydqvist said. “Sometimes you need a slap in the face to perform better next year.”

A year later, South Carolina is heading back out west once again. The team returns to the NCAA Championship for another season, starting first-round play on Friday at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California.

This time around, they’re coming into this next stretch having played their best collective golf. In mid-April, they won at the SEC Championships for only the second time in program history.

Playing in the Charlottesville Regional from May 5-7, South Carolina took a five-stroke lead after day one. It dominated the rest of the way to win the NCAA Regional, finishing -2 and 11 strokes ahead of Ole Miss, which finished in second. Five Gamecocks finished in the top 15, something that had never been done in the program’s 31 all-time regional appearances.

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Which takes them into the final and toughest task of the season. The team knows there’s some pressure on them to perform better with a national title on the line. But despite that and knowing how things went last year, they come into Friday feeling good about where they’re at.

“I think the fact that we’ve had a great postseason with a win at SECs and a win at regionals, I think it takes the pressure off us,” head coach Kalen Anderson said. “We can kind of just go relax and play. But we have a lot to accomplish at Nationals. It’s one of our goals, but we’ve got to just stay in our process and keep doing what we do. It’s an excited group, and we know what we can accomplish.”

For Anderson, in her 18th season at South Carolina, this will be her 14th trip to the NCAA Championship. She’s led the Gamecocks to a pair of top-five finishes but never won it all. But with her players currently performing at a high level, she’s liking their chances.

“The team looks really great from top to bottom. Our five just look excellent. I think the depth of the team is really our strength right now,” Anderson said “… We’ve gotten a little bit of rest here these last few days, and the group’s just excited. We have the addition of Eila (Galitsky) this spring, but the same team essentially from last year, and just a lot of maturity. That’s going to go a long way.”

South Carolina has three of the top 20 women’s golfers in the NCAA Division I rankings. Hannah Darling (12th), Rydqvist (15th) and Galitsky (19th) each have one win under their belts this year. They’ve combined for five top-three finishes. Now they’re just hoping to continue to play their best golf when it matters most.

“We have a very experienced team. We have all been in positions before where we have been in contention. And I think that really adds coming into this national championship,” Rydqvist said. “We know that the pressures there, however, just being very good at acknowledging it and just accepting it, and doing everything as we usually do, is going to take us a long way.”

The NCAA Championship begins Friday, May 16 and runs through May 21. The Golf Channel will broadcast the final three days of the championship.

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