The Colorado women’s golf team, ranked No. 47 nationally, is set to compete in the Causeway Invitational hosted by UC Davis from February 23-24 at Del Paso Country Club in Sacramento, California. This event marks the midpoint of the Buffaloes’ spring season.
Colorado enters as the highest-ranked squad among a field of 10 teams, most of which represent the Big West, West Coast, and Mountain West Conferences. Despite being considered favorites on paper, head coach Madeleine Sheils emphasized that her team is focused on their own performance. “There’s no defense in golf,” Sheils said. “So we just need to focus on ourselves; stick to our own processes and at the end of the day put ourselves in a good position to succeed.”
This will be Colorado’s second appearance at the Causeway Invitational after securing third place last year with three golfers finishing in the top 10. Junior Carolyn Fuller is the only returning member from that group and tied for ninth place previously.
Del Paso Country Club will play at 6,086 yards as a par-72 course, making it the shortest layout Colorado has played this season. The course features accessible par 5s and challenging par 3s. “Del Paso has hosted some USGA events, it’s well maintained, well designed and will be a fun challenge for us,” Sheils said. “We’ll definitely be mapping our way around (in Sunday’s) practice round with that in mind.”
For this tournament, all seven Buffaloes golfers are traveling to Sacramento—an occurrence not seen since their season-opening Ram Classic in Fort Collins. The same five players who competed two weeks ago in Tucson will form Colorado’s team lineup: sophomore Ellen O’Shaughnessy, junior Carolyn Fuller, Vanessa Ngo, Teemapat Pateetin, and Maya McVey.
O’Shaughnessy has led Colorado through two spring events with an average score of 73.2 strokes and two top-15 finishes. She recently placed 13th at the Thunderbird Invitational with a total score of four-over-par 220. Fuller finished just outside the top 20 at that event.
Freshmen Brenna Higgins and Ananthi Vivek will compete as individuals; for Vivek, it marks her first competition since September’s Ram Classic. “Being able to bring the whole team here to the tournament is a real blessing,” Sheils said. “I’m excited to see how Ananthi and Brenna fare this week. They’ve both been working hard and we’re thrilled to have them here.”
The Causeway Invitational consists of three rounds across two days: two rounds on Monday followed by a final round Tuesday. Each day starts with a shotgun format beginning at 9:30 a.m MT.
Colorado will be paired with UC Davis and Santa Clara for Monday’s opening rounds; Higgins and Vivek start on hole sixteen alongside golfers from UC Davis and UC Riverside.
