STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford women's golf made it a clean sweep of the final major Pac-12 awards and earned another from the WGCA. Both groups made their announcements on Wednesday morning, with Paula Martin Sampedro being named the Pac-12 Golfer of the Year, Pac-12 and WGCA Freshman of the Year, and Anne Walker being named Pac-12 and WGCA Coach of the Year.
Martin Sampedro caps off a banner year with not just the Freshman of the Year Award from the Pac-12 and WGCA, but the Pac-12 Golfer of the Year award as well. She led Stanford with a 70.5 scoring average in 28 rounds and finished at par or better in 24 of those 28 rounds. Nine times she has shot in the 60s, including a 5-under 67 in both the Carmel Cup and Juli Inkster Invitational, and had nine top-10 finishes in 10 tournaments. Her worst finish this year came at the Pac-12 Championship when she still finished under par for the event. She placed third at the NCAA Championship, the highest-ranking freshman in the country.
Also new in 2024, Martin Sampedro was named to the All-Freshman Team from the WGCA, joining the five finalists she was paired with for the Freshman of the Year award.
2024 marks the fifth season in a row this award has been given to a Stanford Cardinal. Albane Valenzuela won the award in 2019, Rachel Heck won the award in 2021 and Rose Zhang won it in 2022 and 2023. 2024 is also the fourth year in a row that Stanford has won the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, as Martin Sampedro follows Megha Ganne (2023), Zhang (2022), and Heck (2021). Overall, Martin Sampedro is the eighth golfer in the history of the Pac-12 to win the Freshman of the Year and Golfer of the Year award in the same season.
Margot and Mitch Milias Director of Women's Golf, Anne Walker, is no stranger to accolades. This is the third time in the last four seasons she has been named the Pac-12 Coach of the Year, and her fourth time overall. With four Coach of the Year awards, Walker is now tied for the second most in the history of the Pac-12. In addition, she earned her third WGCA Coach of the Year award, an honor she's received following all three Stanford national championships.
Stanford won five tournaments throughout the season, including the final three (Pac-12 Championship, NCAA Cle Elum Regional, NCAA Championship). The Cardinal became just the second team to win the NCAA Championship after entering match play as the No. 1 seed (Stanford also did this in 2022). With three NCAA titles since 2015, Stanford is the only program to win multiple NCAA women's golf titles since the inception of match play, and the three NCAA Championships are the most in the country by any women's or men's program since 2008.
Stanford had 4 All-Pac-12 selections this year, and individual winners at the Carmel Cup (Megha Ganne), East Lake Cup (Sadie Englemann), and NCAA Cle Elum Regional (Rachel Heck).