No. 5 Ducks Set For NCAA Gold Canyon Regional

GOLD CANYON, Ariz. - The Oregon women's golf team will begin its bid for a trip to the NCAA Championships on Monday as the Ducks open up the 2025 NCAA Gold Canyon Regional at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club. No. 5 ranked Oregon is the No. 1 seed in the 12-team field in Arizona, with the top five teams at the end of the three rounds earning spots at the NCAA Championships (May 16-21, Carlsbad, Calif.).

Oregon is making its 17th straight and 29th overall NCAA Regional appearance while aiming to reach the NCAA Championships for the 14th time in program history. UO has advanced through NCAA stroke play and into match play twice in the last three seasons, finishing as the national runners-up in 2022 and reaching the match play semifinals last spring.

The Ducks are coming off their second conference title in program history, winning the Big Ten Championship in their first year in the league behind individual champion Kiara Romero. It was Oregon's second win of the season as the Ducks improved their overall competitive record to 113-17-0, including a stellar 86-7-0 mark this spring.

UO will be paired with No. 8 Arizona State and No. 17 Auburn in Monday's opening round, teeing off of hole No. 1 beginning at 8:00 a.m. PT.

2025 NCAA Gold Canyon Regional
Dates: Monday, May 5 - Wednesday, May 7
Course: Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club
Par/Yardage: Par 72/6,544 yards
Format: Three rounds of stroke play; Top five advance to NCAA Championships

The Field (12 Teams)
#5 Oregon, #8 Arizona State (host), #17 Auburn, #20 Mississippi State, Cal State Fullerton, California, Navy, Oklahoma State, Quinnipiac, Sacramento State, San Jose State, Virginia Tech

How to Follow
Live scoring for the NCAA Gold Canyon Regional will be available on Scoreboard Live, and live updates will be provided on Twitter at @OregonWGolf.

Teeing Off for the Ducks (Scoring Avg.)
1. Kiara Romero (70.16)
2. Suvichaya Vinijchaitham (71.46)
3. Tong An (73.61)
4. Ting-Hsuan Huang (73.29)
5. Darae Chung (74.33)
Sub. Karen Tsuru (72.32)

NCAA Regional History
Oregon is making its 29th overall NCAA Regional appearance and 17th in a row dating back to 2008, excluding the 2019-20 season that was cut short due to COVID-19. The Ducks have advanced through the NCAA Regional round three times in the last four years, placing second at the NCAA Auburn Regional last season to punch their ticket back to the NCAA Championships. Oregon earned its first ever NCAA Regional title in 2022, winning the Albuquerque Regional before finishing as the national runners-up at the NCAA Championships. UO will need a top-five finish to make it out of the Godl Canyon Regional, having placed in the top five in every tournament so far in 2024-25.

Champs! Ducks Run Away With Big Ten Title
Trailing by three strokes entering the final round of the Big Ten Championships, the Ducks put together a dominant performance to run away with the conference title in their first year in the league. Oregon fired a stellar 12-under 276 to win the team title by a whopping 14 strokes, matching the tournament 54-hole scoring record in the process with a 12-under 852 for the weekend and winning the second conference title in program history (2022 Pac-12). Sophomore Kiara Romero gave Oregon a championship sweep by claiming the individual conference title at 7-under par, winning by three strokes after a 4-under 68 in the final round. Romero shot under par in all three rounds (71-70-68) to join Hsin-Yu Lu (2022) and Caroline Inglis (2015) as Ducks to win an individual conference championship. Freshman Tong An provided the low round of the tournament with a bogey-free 6-under 66 in the final round, moving up 32 spots to tie for fifth overall on the individual leaderboard at 2 under. Freshman Suvichaya Vinijchaitham also posted a top-10 finish in ninth at 1 under, joining An and Romero in the 60s on the final day with a 3-under 69. It was the second tournament win of the season for the Ducks and 10th under head coach Derek Radley. It is also one of six Big Ten titles for Oregon Athletics in its first year in the conference, along with women's cross country, football, both men's and women's indoor track and field, and softball.

Ducks Dominate B1G Awards
Oregon cleaned up on Big Ten Conference end-of-season awards after winning the Big Ten Championship. Kiara Romero was named the Big Ten Women's Golfer of the Year earning all-Big Ten honors along with three of her teammates, and Derek Radley was selected as the Big Ten Coach of the Year. Romero became the first player in program history to be named the conference player of the year, while Radley joined Renee Baumgartner (1997, Pac-10) as Oregon head coaches to be selected as the conference coach of the year. Romero also received the Mary Fossum Award as the player in the conference with the lowest adjusted scoring average. Sophomore Karen Tsuru and freshman Suvichaya Vinijchaitham joined Romero on the all-Big Ten first team as UO led the league with three selections, and freshman Tong An landed on the all-Big Ten second team to help UO tie Northwestern for the most overall all-conference honorees. Four total all-conference selections are the most in program history and three first-team honorees match the 2021-22 team for the most all-time. Tsuru was also honored as Oregon's Big Ten Sportsmanship Award recipient.

Romero Making Case As Nation's Top Player
Kiara Romero enters the NCAA Gold Canyon Regional at No. 3 in both the individual national rankings and the World Amateur Golf Rankings, putting herself in contention for national player of the year with a sensational sophmore season. The individual Big Ten champion and conference player of the year owns a 70.16 scoring average through 25 rounds, on track to shatter her UO single-season record of 70.84 she set as a freshman in 2023-24. She has shot par-or-better in 14 of 15 rounds this spring with 11 sub-70 performances while placing in the top 10 in all five tournaments with one win and three runner-up finishes. On the season, Romero owns nine top-20 finishes and seven top-10 finishes, and her team-high 102 birdies are only 16 back of the UO record 118 she made last season. Romero has managed to improve upon a historic freshman season that saw her earn WGCA first-team all-America and National Freshman of the Year honors. Romero dazzled in her first career NCAA Championships last spring, tying for sixth overall in stroke play while becoming the first Duck ever to shoot under par (-4) in a 72-hole tournament.