ASHTIN ELDER

The No. 3 WashU women’s golf team placed second at the Berry Invitational with a combined team score of 612 (+36) strokes on March 10-11 in Statesboro, Georgia. Senior and former All-American Sydney Kuo and junior Tiffany Chan both placed in the top five out of over 100 players, with Kuo tied for third place in shooting 148 (+5) and Chan finishing two strokes behind in fourth.

“We’re sitting in a really good place heading into the meat of our spring season right now,” head coach Dave Reinhardt said about the team’s performance in Georgia.

In the first round, Kuo recorded two birdies and two bogeys through the first nine holes. After turning the corner, she notched two birdies on the par-5 11th hole and par-4 16th hole before finishing the day with a bogey to end the first round sitting in first place and one under par. Chan finished the first round four over par in seventh place after six bogeys and two birdies. 

“It felt pretty good,” Kuo said. “Definitely, not a bad start this season but given my past performances this is a motivator to work hard and do well so I can perform even better the rest of the season, and just set myself up well to perform well at Nationals.”

First-year Nicole McGuire finished the first round in seventh place with seven bogeys and two birdies, scoring her a 77. Sophomore Amy Beanblossom sat one stroke behind in 10th place and senior McKensey Kaseta rounded out the Bears’ five golfers, shooting an 87 on the first day.

At the end of the first round, WashU sat in the lead with a combined team score of 302 strokes, four ahead of conference rival No. 1 Carnegie Mellon University.

Twenty four hours later, WashU returned to the course for the tournament’s second round. Kuo got off to a quick start with a birdie on the par-4 second hole. Despite the better weather conditions, the second round posed more of a challenge for Kuo who would finish six over par. Despite the higher finish, she combined for a tournament score of five over par, which was enough to secure third place.

“I think it was just getting used to playing so many rounds again,” Kuo said about the challenges posed by the second round after the offseason. “We had gotten there a couple days early, played two rounds of golf, and I think it was just a big change from not playing that much to playing a lot.”

During the second round, Chan shot a score of two over par, recording third birdies, three bogeys, and one double to move up in the field from seventh to tied for fourth, where she finished the tournament.

“Sydney’s our number one player, and has been for the past three and a half years,” Reinhardt said. “So I knew she’s going to be a rock out there, and Tiffany is our solid number two right now. Again, she actually bettered Sydney’s score on day two. So to have two players in the top five, that just gives them a big, big note of confidence, and … as a team, we know we can count on them to continue to play well and perform again.”

McGuire and Beanblossom finished 10th and 17th with respective rounds of 77 and 80. Kaseta moved up four spots to finish the tournament in 43rd — rounding out the Bears’ five golfers.

WashU will now turn their attention to their home tournament — the WashU Spring Invite at Crescent Farms Golf Club on March 22-23. The Bears’ spring season will continue with multiday tournaments as they look towards the postseason.

According to Reinhardt, as the team continues their season they have their eyes fixed on one goal: qualifying for the NCAA Championships as a team through an at-large bid which can be achieved through a high season ranking. The last time WashU received an at-large bid to the national tournament was in 2023 when they finished as national runner-up and Kuo placed second individually.

“Number one, the goal is to qualify for the NCAA championships, and we have a really, really good shot at that,” Reinhardt said. “We won’t find out until early May if that happens, but with our performances this fall and what we’re doing this spring, it was a really good opportunity for us to compete there.”

This task may be made slightly easier this year because the NCAA increased the number of at-large bids to the tournament. Because the University Athletic Association only has four teams that compete in women’s golf, the conference champion does not automatically qualify for the NCAA Tournament, making an at-large big WashU’s only option to make it to the national stage.

Kuo hopes to use upcoming matches, like the WashU Spring Invite, to work on different parts of her game to compete her best later in the season.

“Because we’re not a D-I program that competes year round, we’ve had an offseason, which is a really great break for all of us to focus on ourselves and focus on academics, but it can also be a good break from golf because we don’t practice as much,” Kuo said. “It’s time now to get back into those kind of things, and sort of spend and dedicate the time to getting back into performing the best that I can.”