Vanderbilt Women’s Golf Season Ends At NCAA Championship, Finishes 16th: The Anchor, May 20, 2025

Originally posted on Vanderbilt Commodores on SI
By Graham Baakko | Last updated May 20, 2025 1:01 AM ET

Vanderbilt Women’s Golf finished in 16th at the NCAA Championship over the weekend, the Commodores’ best finish since 2014.

Vanderbilt missed the cut for Monday’s fourth round by just two strokes, the first team off the cut line.

“Well this definitely stings and I hate it for our girls,” said head coach Greg Allen. “It’s never a good feeling when the season ends. Thankfully, we don’t have any seniors in this lineup so we’re not having to say any goodbyes just yet.”

It was not all bad, though. Commodores sophomore Ava Merrill advanced to Monday’s fourth round as the top individual player on a non-qualifying team. Merrill shot 2-under 70 in the third one to place 17th on the individual leaderboard.

“She is playing at a very high level right now and I’m excited to see how high she can climb tomorrow,” Allen said going into the final round.

Merrill finished the NCAA Championships tied for 14th with four other players. In Monday’s final round, Merrill shot 1-under par.

Behind Merrill was Sara Im who came in at even par. Tillie Claggett carded a 3-over 75, Lynn Lim a 7-over 79 and Angelina Tolentino a 10-over 82 on the final day. Vanderbilt finished 8-over-par as three triple bogeys in the third round came back to bite the Commodores.

“I thought our girls played with a lot of heart today, but again, we made too many big numbers,” Allen said. “Those are hard to overcome when the cut is decided by two shots. I thought when we finished we might have a chance with the afternoon wave, but LSU and UCLA handled the wind and played well to keep us outside the line.”

Fortunately, there are no seniors on the roster, so the Commodores will have an experienced roster going into next season and Allen feels optimistic about where the team will be.

“I’m very encouraged about our future,” Allen continued. “This group had a really good year, but I think we all feel it could have been better. Hopefully this will motivate us to come back stronger.”

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