BERKELEY – Cal women's golf will head to Saugahatchee Country Club in Opelika, Alabama as they look to earn qualification to the NCAA Championship this week. Cal, making their 20th straight NCAA Regionals appearance, will take on a talented field at the Auburn Regional.
 
Cal enters as the 12th seed in the regional and will be going up against Duke, Vanderbilt, Florida State, Auburn, Virginia, Furman, Clemson, Houston, Kennesaw State, Alabama, Tennessee, Maryland, East Carolina, Denver, South Alabama, Albany and Murray State.
 
The top six teams and three individuals not from those teams at each NCAA regional will advance to the NCAA Championship at Blessings Golf Club, in Fayetteville, Arkansas on May 17-22. Cal has had representatives at the past five NCAA Championships as they qualified as a team in 2014, 2015 and 2017 and sent individuals in both 2016 and 2018.
 
The Bears are coming off a ninth-place finish at the Pac-12 Championship the last time out, but look to revert to the form that had them flying high earlier in the spring. Cal recorded four second-place finishes this year including three straight.
 
This has been a breakout campaign for senior Cindy Oh. She has played two of the 10 best rounds in school history and tied for the school record for shots under par as she shot a 6-under 67 at the Pac-12 Preview. Oh recorded three top-five finishes and five top-20 finishes. That was on the back of 12 rounds at par or under during the season. Oh also provided the Bears with one of their signature wins of the year as she sunk the match-winning putt on the second tiebreaker hole at the inaugural Big Match this fall, leading the Bears to a match-play victory over Stanford. She currently has the best scoring average by a senior in school history at 73.07.
 
Freshman Katherine Zhu has also been instrumental during her first year on campus. The San Jose native has played in every tournament and currently holds the lowest scoring average by a freshman in school history at 73.5. Zhu has 10 rounds at par or under as she has tallied five top-10 finishes and eight straight top-25 finishes.
 
The last time that Cal played in Alabama, then-freshman and current senior Marianne Li won the event as she shot 4-over 220 across three rounds at the NCAA Shoal Creek Regional. Li was one of three people to finish at 4-over as she booked an individual spot at the NCAA Championship.  Li is one of just two Bears on the roster with NCAA Championship experience as she qualified as part of the team during the 2017 season.
 
Maria Herraez Galvez is the other Bears with NCAA Championship experience as she competed with the team during her freshman season. She notched a 24th-place finish and notched two rounds at par in the NCAA Regionals to help the Bears qualify as a team.
 
Course Info:
Saugahatchee Country Club
Par: 72
Yardage: 6,371
 
Lineup
1. Cindy Oh
2. Katherine Zhu
3. Maria Herraez Galvez
4. Marianne Li
5. Elena Arias