Northwestern University’s women’s golf team achieved a milestone by winning its first NCAA championship, thanks in large part to Dianna Lee’s impressive performance against Stanford’s Andrea Revuelta. The moment of reckoning came, appropriately enough, when Lee made a huge 5-foot par putt on 18. This clutch performance, including the game-winner, clinched a 3-2 victory, capping her team’s momentous win.
The competition was stiff in this winner–take–all match as Lee quickly built a sizable lead. At one stage in that contest, she had been 3-up with only five holes to go. The weight only increased as she found herself in a back bunker on the par-3 16th hole. With utmost skill and precision, she blasted out and got to within 7 feet of the pin. Even with all of Lee’s gallant push, Lee could not convert the par putt on that hole, thus giving Revuelta the chance to remain standing in contention.
As the competition went on, especially during the final 17th hole, Lee began to falter. Her makeable uphill putt spun hard off the left lip and rolled 5 feet past the hole. Nonetheless, she managed to regroup and made her crucial putt on the 18th hole to maintain a 1-up lead going into the final moments of the match.
Lastly, Revuelta, desperate not to be knocked out of the competition, experienced losses as well. She made bogey on the 11th and 12th holes. Now, with just five holes to play, she is already three strokes behind. In her efforts to remain in contention, Revuelta missed her 4-foot par putt on the 17th green and was 1 down to Lee.
She had another chance to end the match before that, too—she missed on a shorter, 12-foot birdie opportunity. Unfortunately for her, she tugged that putt too, leaving it to run almost 5 feet past the hole. Through all the ebbing and flowing momentum, Lee’s doggedness brought her the long-awaited eventual success.
With this win, Northwestern’s women’s golf team celebrated a significant achievement in their program’s history.
“More than doing what people didn’t think you could is this group believing what it thought it could do.” – Emily Fletcher
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