UW Women’s Golf — Youth Movement

from GoHuskies March 2022

Teed Up with UW Men's Golf

Head coach MARY LOU MULFLUR’S young 2022 team is poised to be at the top table — again

BY BOB SHERWIN • CONTRIBUTING WRITER

It can be confirmed that when the Washington women’s golf team won the NCAA title in 2016, every member on this season’s Husky team was already born.

This is to say, with some jocularity, that the Husky women’s team, with coach Mary Lou Mulflur in her 38th season, is remarkably young. It might be among the youngest ever to tee up for the Huskies with five freshmen, two sophomores, two juniors and just one senior. It’s the program’s first fully 21st Century team.

“We’ll have two freshmen in the lineup every week contributing,” said Mulflur, whose team begins the season Feb. 14 in Las Vegas. Mulflur will have until then to sort out the pecking order among the new and slightly used. “It’s a hard-working team. They want to be as good as they can be,” she added. “They’re not afraid of challenging each other.”

Among the young expected to show the way is sophomore Camille Boyd, from Yorba Linda, Calif., who went to Shanghai American School. She flashed her potential this past September at the Mason Rudolph Championship in Nashville. Boyd tied for individual second place with the three lowest rounds of her career, 66-70-69. It equaled the third lowest three-round score (11-under) in UW history and the best since Soo Bin Kim shot 11-under in 2012.

“Camille had the best fall. She really was outstanding,” Mulflur said. “Two of our freshmen (Jamie Hsieh, Kennedy Knox) got better every week, which is what we want to see.” Hsieh, from Taiwan through Hill International Golf Academy in Australia, had the best showing among the Huskies at the Pac-12 Preview in Hawaii last November. She finished 10th with a three-round score of 230 (73-75-72).

Knox, who went to Mt. Rainier in Normandy Park, is coming off a stellar summer in which he won the PNGA Junior Girls, WJGA State, Seattle Women’s Amateur and Washington State Amateur.

Also, last fall, Winnie Ng, a junior from Malaysia, finished fifth out of 110 competitors at the Pat Lesser-Harbottle Seattle U. Invitational.

After their Feb. 14-15 opener in Las Vegas, The Show at Spanish Trail, the Huskies are scheduled to compete about every two weeks. That will be followed by the Gunrock Invitational Feb. 28-March 1, Juli Inkster Invitational (March 7-8), Ping/ASU Invitational (March 25-27), the Silverado Showdown (April 4-6), and the Chambers Bay Invitational (April 11-12).

The Chambers event, co-hosted with Seattle U., is held in advance of the USGA Women’s Amateur Aug. 8-14 at the University Place facility. Mulflur appreciates that the event, featuring the best 144 amateur in the world, is right in their backyard. Boyd or other Huskies might be among the qualifiers. “They (players) were thrilled when they became aware of it,” Mulflur said. “USGA is as good as it gets. It’s a great measuring stick for them.”

A week after Chambers, the Pac-12 Championships will be held at Eugene (Ore.) Country Club, the site where six years ago the Huskies won the national title. That will be followed by the NCAA Regionals, beginning May 9, and then the NCAA Championships May 20-25 in Scottsdale.

Mulflur, a member of the Women’s Golf Coaches Hall of Fame, has led the Huskies to 27 of the 29 NCAA Regionals that have been contested since their inception in 1993. Her success has a chance to continue as the program has an eye on next fall when touted newcomer Carmen Lim of New Zealand joins the team.

“She’s a stud. She will play for us right away,” Mulflur said. “She has ice water in her veins.” Lim won the 2019 New Zealand Stroke Play Championship by seven shots as a 15-year-old. Mulflur and her staff saw Lim play at the Astor Cup in Vancouver, B.C. She was offered a scholarship, she accepted and will be in Seattle this fall along with another newcomer, Angela Park of Pasco. The next youth movement.