Senior Lea Garner shot 3-under and led the No. 37 BYU women’s golf team to a top-6 finish at the NCAA Women’s Regional over the weekend.
With the sixth-place finish, the Cougars qualify for a position in the NCAA Women’s Golf Finals in Eugene, Oregon.
“This finish means so much to these girls,” said BYU head coach Carrie Roberts. “It makes every ounce of hard work worth it. It makes everything worth it. We are a tough team and fought to the end.”
The Cougars shot +20 for the tournament, narrowly getting by Houston (who shot +21) for the final qualifying spot.
BYU advances to the NCAA Finals for the first time since the 2006-07 season. The University of Oregon will host the finals on May 20-25.
It marks the first time the Cougars have qualified since 2007, but a lot has changed since then.
The format of the Finals changed in 2014 when match play was added to determine the team winner. With the change, the championship is now played over six days and Sunday is a competition day.
The Sunday play issue creates obvious issues for the Cougars, but the NCAA Women’s Golf Committee announced on Sunday that it will let the Cougars play their Sunday round on Thursday afternoon instead.
BYU will play the first two rounds on Friday and Saturday, then wait for the remainder of the field to compete on Sunday. If they are in the top-18 after Sunday, they will compete as scheduled on Monday.
