[Spiny_Norman]

Why no East Lake Cup this year? We're getting enough match play practice elsewhere? Too much travel? Hawaii is nicer? ________?

The team is playing a made-for-tv event in early October in New Mexico. They will play dual matches vs. New Mexico, New Mexico State and Texas (preseason #2). Also the Hawaii event directly conflicts with the East Lake Cup.

For an overview of the team, I'll just copy and paste here the pre-season analysis from Brentley Romine of the Golf Channel.

Returning: Paula Martin Sampedro (Soph.), Kelly Xu (Jr.), Megha Ganne (Jr.), Caroline Sturdza (Sr.), Yu Wen Lu (Sr.)

Departed: Rachel Heck, Sadie Englemann, Brooke Seay

Arriving: Andrea Revuelta (Fr.), Meja Ortengren (Fr.), Nora Sundberg (Fr.), Leigh Chien (Fr.)

Projected starting lineup: Sampedro, Revuelta, Ortengren, Xu, Ganne

Scouting report: Stanford had no problem replacing Rose Zhang a season ago as it won its third NCAA team title in the match-play era. Now, it must replace veterans Rachel Heck and Sadie Englemann, and head coach Anne Walker does so with arguably the greatest recruiting class in college golf history. Revuelta, a recent runner-up at the European Ladies Amateur, is the ninth-ranked player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, two spots ahead of where Albane Valenzuela was when she arrived at Stanford nearly a decade ago. Revuelta has some shades of Valenzuela, an old-school talent with an artistic mind and sweet swing that produces a high, right-to-left ball flight. Ortengren has been a top-10 amateur in the past, and she was third at the European Ladies and reached the Round of 16 of the Women’s British Amateur this summer. She and fellow Swede Sundberg, No. 44 in WAGR, have been playing golf together for over a decade. Chien is one of the top American incoming freshmen, though it will be tough for her to break the starting lineup this year. That’s because there are some standout returners as well, led by Sampedro, who racked up eight finishes of T-7 or better as a freshman with her worst finish a T-16 at the Pac-12 Championship. She did all that while only getting up and down about 35% of the time. She makes plenty of birdies, nearly five per round, so if her short game improves, she could challenge the likes of Lottie Woad and Adela Cernousek for the Annika Award. Xu has quietly and steadily climbed the ranks, and she’s now a top-50 amateur, too. Ganne played only the U.S. Women’s Open this summer as food poisoning knocked her out of the U.S. Women’s Amateur. She has some time to shake the rust off, though, since the Cardinal don’t start their fall until last September. That will also give the newcomers, who aren’t on campus yet, some time to settle in. “It’s a long year, and this will be the first year that they don’t really have an offseason,” Walker said. “So, my advice to them was just rest up. One of the things we always stress here is you don’t have to be an All-American on Day 1.” Stanford might have a couple anyway.

[Spiny_Norman]

Why no East Lake Cup this year? We're getting enough match play practice elsewhere? Too much travel? Hawaii is nicer? ________?

The team is playing a made-for-tv event in early October in New Mexico. They will play dual matches vs. New Mexico, New Mexico State and Texas (preseason #2). Also the Hawaii event directly conflicts with the East Lake Cup.

For an overview of the team, I'll just copy and paste here the pre-season analysis from Brentley Romine of the Golf Channel.

Returning: Paula Martin Sampedro (Soph.), Kelly Xu (Jr.), Megha Ganne (Jr.), Caroline Sturdza (Sr.), Yu Wen Lu (Sr.)

Departed: Rachel Heck, Sadie Englemann, Brooke Seay

Arriving: Andrea Revuelta (Fr.), Meja Ortengren (Fr.), Nora Sundberg (Fr.), Leigh Chien (Fr.)

Projected starting lineup: Sampedro, Revuelta, Ortengren, Xu, Ganne

Scouting report: Stanford had no problem replacing Rose Zhang a season ago as it won its third NCAA team title in the match-play era. Now, it must replace veterans Rachel Heck and Sadie Englemann, and head coach Anne Walker does so with arguably the greatest recruiting class in college golf history. Revuelta, a recent runner-up at the European Ladies Amateur, is the ninth-ranked player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, two spots ahead of where Albane Valenzuela was when she arrived at Stanford nearly a decade ago. Revuelta has some shades of Valenzuela, an old-school talent with an artistic mind and sweet swing that produces a high, right-to-left ball flight. Ortengren has been a top-10 amateur in the past, and she was third at the European Ladies and reached the Round of 16 of the Women’s British Amateur this summer. She and fellow Swede Sundberg, No. 44 in WAGR, have been playing golf together for over a decade. Chien is one of the top American incoming freshmen, though it will be tough for her to break the starting lineup this year. That’s because there are some standout returners as well, led by Sampedro, who racked up eight finishes of T-7 or better as a freshman with her worst finish a T-16 at the Pac-12 Championship. She did all that while only getting up and down about 35% of the time. She makes plenty of birdies, nearly five per round, so if her short game improves, she could challenge the likes of Lottie Woad and Adela Cernousek for the Annika Award. Xu has quietly and steadily climbed the ranks, and she’s now a top-50 amateur, too. Ganne played only the U.S. Women’s Open this summer as food poisoning knocked her out of the U.S. Women’s Amateur. She has some time to shake the rust off, though, since the Cardinal don’t start their fall until last September. That will also give the newcomers, who aren’t on campus yet, some time to settle in. “It’s a long year, and this will be the first year that they don’t really have an offseason,” Walker said. “So, my advice to them was just rest up. One of the things we always stress here is you don’t have to be an All-American on Day 1.” Stanford might have a couple anyway.