The Colorado women’s golf team, ranked No. 43 nationally, will begin its spring season at the Collegiate Invitational at Guadalajara Country Club in Mexico on January 30-31. The event marks the team’s first competition since a record-setting fall campaign.
During the fall, Colorado set a new school record for fall season stroke average at 73.29. The Buffaloes also won the Ram Classic in Fort Collins and finished second at Denver’s Ron Moore Intercollegiate. Their season concluded with a tie for sixth place at the Nanea Invitational in Hawai’i.
After nearly three months without competition, the team resumed practice on January 15 to prepare for the upcoming tournament.
“It’s really good for our team to start competing right away,” said head coach Madeleine Sheils. “It sharpens our focus in practice and makes us make the absolute best out of every winter practice session, knowing we have a tournament coming up quickly. Certainly, this time of year, for every team across the country, most players have taken a really long break from competitive golf, so there’s rust everywhere. But we’re excited to knock it off early and start competing right away.”
The Buffaloes held a weekend training session in Arizona before heading to Mexico. They practiced and played scrimmages at Grand Canyon’s facility in Tempe and spent their final day training at Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale.
“It was a productive weekend, and we feel really grateful we had the opportunity to do that and make sure we’re getting ready for competition in the best way,” Sheils said.
Colorado is among 12 teams participating in Guadalajara, with seven of those teams ranked inside the top 50 nationally. Five Big 12 Conference programs are competing as well; Oklahoma State is ranked highest among them at No. 19.
The lineup representing Colorado includes Carolyn Fuller, Brenna Higgins, Ellen O’Shaughnessy, Maya McVey and Vanessa Ngo—all of whom recorded strong performances during the fall season. Fuller led with an average score of 72.14 over her rounds and posted Colorado’s lowest score over two events; Ngo followed closely with an average of 72.45 while contributing scores to the team total in almost every round she played.
The course will play up to 6,210 yards as a par-72 layout. The tournament features an unusual format: Teams will complete two days consisting of 27 holes each instead of playing three traditional rounds across three days.
“We need to have a really great plan for attacking the golf course, because it’s quite narrow and difficult around the greens,” Sheils said. “We need to go in with a smart plan and be committed to executing it throughout the weekend. And we also need to be patient with ourselves. The first tournament back, a lot of times, what is rusty is your decision-making and your ability to stay focused for a long day on the course. We’ve been working a lot on our attention and our commitment when we’re playing, and I think that continued focus will be a big key to our success.”
Colorado will compete alongside Florida State (No. 28) and Houston (No. 32) during Friday’s opening rounds beginning from hole one at 7:45 a.m., Mountain Time.
