SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Stanford women's golf swept the Pac-12 Conference postseason awards, announced on Tuesday by the league office. Rachel Heck was named Pac-12 Women's Golfer and Newcomer of The Year, while Anne Walker earned her second Pac-12 Women's Golf Coach of the Year honors.
Heck has earned every conceivable award to date. She becomes the first Stanford women's golfer and sixth in Conference history to capture both the Pac-12 Golfer and Freshman/Newcomer of the Year awards (Erica Blasberg ARIZ 1993, Louise Stahl ASU 2005, Anna Nordqvist ASU 2007, Annie Park USC 2013, Alison Lee UCLA 2014). She is just the second Cardinal in program history to earn Golfer of the Year honors, joining Albane Valenzuela in 2019. She joins Andrea Lee (2017) as the only other Newcomer of the Year in school history.
Along with her Pac-12 awards sweep, Heck is just the second player to win all major women's collegiate golf national accolades since the creation of the ANNIKA Award in 2014. She joins Duke's Leona Maguire in 2015 as recipients of the ANNIKA Award and both the PING WGCA Player and WGCA Freshman of the Year in the same season.
She is also only the sixth to garner both WGCA awards (Lorena Ochoa ARIZ 2001, Louise Stahl ASU 2005, Amanda Blumenherst DUKE 2006, Annie Park USC 2013, Loena Maguire DUKE 2015).
Heck won a Stanford-record six times in nine total events during 2021, recording a new NCAA single-season scoring average record (69.72) and becoming the third woman in NCAA history to record a postseason sweep, winning conference, regionals and nationals in the process.
Walker earns her second Pac-12 Coach of the Year accolade along with recognition in Stanford's national championship 2015 season.
The Cardinal won six of its nine stroke-play events entered in 2021, including a pair of dominating NCAA postseason performances. Stanford finished second in two others and fifth in their other non-win. Stanford rolled to a 30-shot victory in the NCAA regionals on its home course followed by a 13-shot margin after four rounds of stroke play at the NCAA Championship to claim the No. 1 seed for match play.
Walker led the Cardinal to one of its most successful seasons with a young roster featuring freshmen Rachel Heck and Sadie Englemann and sophomores Brooke Seay and Angelina Ye, all of whom were competing in their first postseason in 2021. Both Heck and Ye earned WGCA First Team All-America honors, making Stanford the only school in the country with two First Team selections.