The NCAA first offered its women’s golf championship in 1982, but it wasn’t the only one that year. The AIAW, which had sponsored several women’s collegiate sports since before Title IX, conducted its final championships in 1981-82. This could have caused some controversy as not all teams participated in both contests, but Coach Dale McNamara’s Tulsa team left no doubt who was the best.

First up in May, Tulsa navigated Stanford’s home course for a 30-plus stroke victory in the first NCAA championship. The Golden Hurricane also laid claim to the first NCAA individual title with Kathy Baker and Jody Rosenthal finishing 1-2.

A couple weeks later, the final AIAW championship returned to Ohio State’s famed Scarlet Course where women’s college golf began 41 years prior. Tulsa waded through the intermittent cold rain to secure permanent possession of the Colgate Cup by just three shots over Texas. Amy Benz of SMU took the final individual title while Kathy Baker finished T9. 

Melissa McNamara, daughter of Coach Dale McNamara, had a storybook ending to her collegiate career as her 1988 NCAA individual title helped Tulsa secure the team championship.; But that’s just the beginning of the story. Four years after becoming the only mother-daughter combo — and believed to be the only parent-child combo — in college golf history to win individual and team championships in the same year, Tulsa learned that their team title was vacated by the NCAA.

After a lengthy investigation, the NCAA determined there had been athletic misconduct by the track and field team and because the university had not been compliant in sponsoring the minimum number of men’s teams required for NCAA membership, all of their athletic accomplishments that season were voided. This gut punch was not softened much by McNamara being “allowed” to retain her individual title. Time does not heal all wounds.

The 1990 championship kicked off a decade of dominance by the Arizona State Sun Devils. After finishing runner-up in 1988, ASU seniors Missy Farr and Amy Fruhwirth led the 1989-90 squad that finished no worse than third throughout the season. Freshman phenom and eventual Player of the Year Brandie Burton won six times including the Pac-10 championship. The disappointing runner-up finish for the team, however, fueled them heading into NCAAs where they captured their first team title by a 16-stroke margin.

On the individual side, 72 holes wasn’t enough to crown a champion. It took one extra hole for Arizona sophomore Susan Slaughter to defeat Michiko Hattori of Texas to take the title. A week later, the Sun Devils men's team also won their first NCAA golf championship, making it the first — and so far only — time both men’s and women’s teams from the same program won the same year. 

ASU was the two-time defending champs in 1994-95 and was looking to make it four national championships in six years. The Dun Devils earned decisive victories throughout the season including their third straight Pac-10 Championship, which they won by a whooping 33 strokes. The only blemish on their record was a tie (no playoff) with San Jose State at the West Regional.

Less than a month later, Head Coach Linda Vollstedt's team left no doubt they were the top program in the country, taking their third straight national championship by an incredible 26 strokes. This win also capped off the first — and so far only — undefeated season in NCAA golf history. Kristel Mourgue d’Algue followed in the footsteps of Emilee Klein who had won the individual title for the Sun Devils in 1994. It was only the second time in NCAA history — Arizona’s Susan Slaughter (1990) and Annika Sorenstam (1991) — that teammates had captured back-to-back individual titles.

Arizona freshman Marisa Baena stood over a birdie putt on the 72nd hole of the 1996 NCAA National Championship with a chance to give the Wildcats the team title and seal an eight-stroke individual victory. She missed it.

After some time deliberating the proper protocol, Arizona and San Jose State sent out four players each for a one-hole sudden-death playoff. The Spartan foursome played the par-4 18th hole in a combined 16 strokes. Baena’s teammates combined for 13 strokes. Standing around 150 yards from the green, Baena hit what Head Coach Rick LaRose called “...probably the greatest clutch shot in collegiate golf history,” to seal a one-stroke Wildcat victory.

Just four years earlier, Coach LaRose’s men’s team that included three All-Americans and a senior named Jim Furyk won the NCAA title. The combo made Coach LaRose the first — and so far only — D1 coach to win NCAA team titles on both the men’s and women’s side.

The 2000s brought another Devil three-peat of national titles, but this time it was the blue variety. Duke Head Coach Dan Brooks led the program to its first team title in 1999 and its second in 2002. Coach Brooks (below) had found a winning formula in only keeping five players on the team, and continued that rolling into the 2006-07 season as the two-time defending NCAA champs.

Sophomore Amanda Blumenherst once again led the team to incredible success throughout the season, winning both her second consecutive ACC individual title and national Player of the Year honors (she’d win her third in 2008). Her fourth place finish at NCAAs (Anna Grzebien and Jennie Lee also finished in the top 10) helped complete the three-peat with a 15 shots to spare. Arkansas junior Stacy Lewis shot a blistering final round 66 to capture the individual title by four strokes, a fitting reward for the eventual four-time All-American. 

Two-time Big 10 champion Maria Hernandez (below) capped off an incredible career by earning Purdue its first individual NCAA title at the 2009 championship.

Head Coach Devon Brouse, who has the distinction of being the only coach to earn a spot in both women’s and men’s golf coaches associations halls of fame, earned the unique honor of coaching his second individual champion, not only from different teams but also different genders (John Inman of UNC was his first in 1984).

Arizona State’s seventh NCAA team title also brought with it rare honors for Head Coach Melissa (McNamara) Luellen. Not only did Coach Luellen join a very short list of NCAA players in any sport to win both an individual title as a player and a team title as a coach, it also made her and Coach Dale McNamara (Tulsa) the only known mother-daughter duo to coach NCAA winning teams. 

Six years after the men had adopted the match play format to determine the team winner, the women switched to the same format. Additionally, the Golf Channel significantly bolstered its postseason golf coverage by committing to televise the women’s championship the week before the men’s. Now, 72 holes of stroke play determined the individual champion as well as the eight teams seeded in the match play bracket.

Alabama’s Emma Talley, the 2013 US Women’s Amateur champ, won the individual title, becoming the fifth player to win both tournaments in their career. The #4 seeded Stanford Cardinal defeated both Pac-12 rivals Arizona and Southern California to reach the Finals. It took six extra holes for Baylor’s Lauren Whyte to defeat Duke’s Lisa Maguire to decide who would face Stanford.

Somehow the Championship Match had even more drama, coming down to the final game between Baylor’s Hayley Davis and Stanford’s Mariah Stackhouse. Davis hit a SportsCenter Top 10-worthy shot to go two up with only two holes to play, only to watch as Stackhouse pulled off two incredible birdies in those final holes. The visceral juxtaposition between the Stanford joy and Baylor sorrow after the playoff hole cemented the new format going forward. 

Another epic match play duel came in 2018 at the famed Karsten Creek GC in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Jennifer Kupcho (below) opened with a blistering 65 and three rounds later earned the first individual title in Wake Forest history.

A tiebreaker was needed to not only determine the #1 seed (won by UCLA over Alabama) but also the #8 seed, Arizona defeating Baylor to move on to match play. Instead of facing each other in the quarterfinals, Arizona and Alabama navigated their brackets to meet in the Championship Match.

Thousands of viewers both at the course and at home were treated to an absorbing battle that went to extra holes after Alabama’s Lakareber Abe birdied the 18th hole in her match against Haley Moore. The two played the 18th again, but this time it was Moore who sank the birdie putt to send those watching, including Head Coach Laura Ianello, into rapture. 

Coming into the 2023 NCAA championship, Stanford’s sensational sophomore Rose Zhang had already won what some deemed the US women’s amateur grand slam — US Girl’s Junior Am, US Women’s Am, NCAA individual title, and Augusta National Women’s Amateur, yet somehow she defied the lofty expectations by becoming the first woman to win multiple individual NCAA titles. With victory, she not only eclipsed another famous Stanford sophomore, Tiger Woods, in terms of NCAA titles, but also career collegiate wins (12) and Player of the Year honors (2).

Rose Zhang's individual win also helped secure the #1 seed for Stanford, but they were unable to avoid the dreaded “#1 Seed Curse” for a second year, falling to Pac-12 rival Southern California (#5 seed) in the widely viewed semifinal match-up. Led by two-time ACC Player of the Year Rachel Kuehn and three-time All-American Emilia Migliaccio, Wake Forest bested the Trojans in the Finals to win its first NCAA team title.