October 12, 2026 • by David Tenneson
Freshman fall is supposed to be an adjustment period: new classes, new teammates, and a scramble to find one’s footing. Yet more than 200 men and women across NCAA, NAIA, and NJCAA divisions finished in one of the top two spots in a college golf tournament this month. Judging by the procession of team social media posts celebrating their newcomers, plenty have found their footing somewhere near the top of the leaderboard. We cannot do justice to every performance, but a few help explain why the season’s first month has already become so wonderfully absurd.
Iowa State’s first two tournaments produced two team victories and two individual champions. One was freshman Emma Zheng, who became the first player in program history to win her collegiate debut at the Badger Invitational. The other was Alexandra Vidal, who opened the Schooner Fall Classic with a triple bogey, then made 18 birdies over the next 53 holes to beat Zheng by one.
The Cyclonitas are a perfect 30-0, and Zheng earned Big 12 Player of the Month honors with a 68.33 scoring average. Her ClippdU Pro Analytics splits suggest remarkably little fluctuation: -0.15 on both her first and second nines, and 6-hole averages of -0.17 | -0.14 | -0.14. A chaotic introduction to college, perhaps, but remarkably orderly golf.
The Schooner’s best round belonged to another freshman. Florida State’s Louise Landgraf made just one bogey over her final 36 holes, closing with 64 (6-under). She became the first Seminole to shoot 64 in a tournament - even Lottie Woad’s two 7-under rounds stopped at 65. Landgraf’s college career began at the Folds of Honor Collegiate, which Florida State hosted despite American Dunes being in Grand Haven, Michigan. The Seminoles won their first team title there, one stroke ahead of Texas A&M and two ahead of Duke.
Second-year Seminole Haruhi Nakatani shared individual honors with Duke freshman Mia Hammond, each earning one of college golf’s coolest trophies: a fighter-pilot helmet. Hammond also joined Amanda Blumenherst and Candy Hannemann as the only Blue Devil freshmen to win their collegiate debuts. Hannemann supplies an enticing precedent: 27 years ago, she won the NCAA individual title and helped Dan Brooks secure the first of his seven team championships.
Another contributor to that historic Duke team was Kalen Anderson, now South Carolina’s coach. Her freshmen are already leaving marks of their own. Amelia Harris secured a decisive point against Wake Forest senior Macy Pate to help win the Jackson T. Stephens Cup. Yana Beeli, competing individually at Tot Hill Farm, became the first Gamecock to win her collegiate debut. Harris has a 100% Bounce-Back rate after dropping shots; both newcomers lead the team with under-par averages in their second and third 6-hole splits.
Speaking of coaching trees, Florida State’s Amy Bond has a growing branch in Alabama head coach Lydia Lasprilla. Then Lydia Gumm, she played the Lady Paladin Invitational under Bond in her second collegiate start. Thirteen years later, she returned to capture her first team title as a head coach at the tournament’s 52nd edition. Alabama’s three top-six finishers spanned freshman Manon Petitcolas, senior Natachonok Tunwannarux, and Wingate transfer Amely Bochaton, the reigning Division II individual champion.
Rice’s first appearance carried an entirely different meaning: this was a new program’s debut, two years in the making. Freshman Jessica Jang promptly birdied the very first hole played in Owls history.
High Point’s Makayla Grubb, repeatedly close to winning as a freshman, broke through with a 14-under, four-stroke victory. The Stafford, Virginia, native grew up roughly 90 minutes from the University of Virginia. Had she stayed closer to home, she might instead have played the Canadian Collegiate Invitational, where the Cavaliers won and senior Jaclyn LaHa edged freshman teammate Zoe Cusack for medalist honors. Cusack had already led Virginia with a T-5 debut at the ANNIKA Intercollegiate.
Anything bearing Annika Sörenstam’s name carries prestige, and the tournament at Royal Golf Club in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, supplied the talent to match. UCLA’s Michelle Xing set the course aglow in St. Elmo’s fire, making eight birdies over her final 14 holes to capture one of the fall’s most coveted titles. Alicia Um Holmes must love Xing’s tendency to stack birdies - a 39% Gas Pedal rate - while wanting UCLA’s Drop Score Differential to shrink from 4.83 strokes between its final counting and discarded scores.
Xing vaulted past two Demon Deacons, but no team caught Wake Forest. Chloe Kovelesky, Macy Pate, and Swedish freshman Havanna Torstensson finished inside the top five; two other freshmen added top-15 and top-22 finishes in a 10-stroke victory over Southern Cal. For the second straight season, Kim Lewellen’s Deacs followed an ANNIKA win with first place in the Jackson T. Stephens Cup’s stroke-play portion. Kovelesky has spent five of six stroke-play rounds inside the top five, while Pate shared Stephens Cup medalist honors with reigning NCAA champion Farah O’Keefe.
Wake Forest’s 1.34 Deviation Average - round-to-round difference from its scoring average - is below even last season’s 1.98. That consistency should travel well toward La Costa, although South Carolina’s match-play victory showed that stroke-play superiority does not guarantee the Cup. Pate’s 12.5% Drop-Off rate and 93% Bounce-Back rate make a dangerous combination; adding to her 18.75% Gas Pedal rate could make her tougher still. The numbers describe different strengths: limiting the damage after success, recovering after mistakes, and sustaining a run of birdies.
Southern California lit a fire of its own at the aptly named Golfweek Red Sky Classic. Jasmine Koo and company opened with a 22-under 266 and reached 47-under 817, breaking program and tournament records. Freshman Kaili Xiao contributed a 6-under back-nine 30 to a debut 65 (7-under), the lowest collegiate opening round of Justin Silverstein’s tenure.
Yet the individual title belonged to Miami’s Scarlett Schremmer. After two Texas A&M appearances last fall and sitting out the remainder of the season, she has won twice in three Miami starts. Her tournament-record 17-under 199 at Red Sky followed a Boilermaker Classic victory over Ole Miss freshman Lisa Herman. USC’s record-setting team performance and Schremmer’s record-setting individual performance occupied the same leaderboard - a useful reminder of how much September’s results can conceal when reduced to winners alone.
The newcomers’ success extends well beyond Division I: freshmen across Divisions II and III have already recorded more than 50 top-three finishes. For northern teams in particular, fall results can carry considerable postseason weight. These are not simply promising introductions; they can become part of the résumé that determines whether a team’s season continues in May.
Findlay, one of last season’s eight Division II match-play teams, opened against Division I fields at Folds of Honor and the Mary Fossum Invitational. At the latter, senior Ellie Yeazell, freshman Lillian O’Grady, and sophomore Emma Myers all finished inside the top 15. Returning to Division II competition at Grand Valley State’s Gilda’s Club Laker Fall Invite, all three reached the top five while senior Ashleigh Duflo, the reigning East Regional winner, took medalist honors.
That range of contributions matters in medal-match play, where last season’s championship emphasized consistent scoring and endurance on 36-hole days. NCAA runner-up Anderson, led by freshman Sarah Martin, is already combining both. Across a runner-up finish at Savannah Lakes and a DBU Classic victory, the Trojans posted a 1.50 Drop Score Differential and a 1.14 Deviation Average, while scoring more than a stroke better on 36-hole days. There is little separation at the back of the lineup, little round-to-round variation, and improvement when the day gets longer.
Reigning champion Dallas Baptist has experience on its side and already delivered Kenny Trapp’s 99th team victory. The Patriots are also reproducing many of the Pro Analytics metrics that accompanied last season’s championship. September’s freshmen may be disrupting the picture, but the established contenders have hardly stepped out of it.
Division III champion Emory likewise began with an unbeaten UAA Match Play appearance and a Tartan Invitational victory, just as it did a year ago. Four of last season’s top five NCAA teams attended UAA. Emory beat New York University and Washington University in St. Louis, then drew with Carnegie Mellon. In the marquee individual match, last season’s No. 1-ranked player, Emory’s Zimo Li, defeated NCAA runner-up Alyssa Lim.
Those teams reconvened at the Tartan, where Emory won again. Amanda Zheng, last season’s No. 2-ranked player, supplied perhaps the neatest September fact of all: she now has more career medalist honors (4) than she made over-par holes in the entire tournament (2).
A debut win used to be enough to stop and admire. This month, it shares space with a program’s first-ever hole becoming a birdie, a triple bogey becoming a trophy, and a coach returning to a freshman proving ground - in a different seat in the team van - to get team win number two. Add the splits, the scoring gaps, and some championship teams not exactly resembling themselves (yet), and the picture gets richer. If this is what the rest of the season offers, we are in for quite a treat.
David Tenneson is a college golf historian and the face behind 5count4.