Blythewood, S.C. – Western Carolina women's golf opens its quest for a Southern Conference championship on Monday in the Midlands of South Carolina at the 2026 Southern Conference Women's Golf, contested at the par-72, 6,219-yard Columbia Country Club.
Nine teams vie for the 2026 championship over the three-day, 54-hole event that is in its fifth different home over the past six seasons. The tournament will feature 18 holes per day, beginning each morning off the first and 10th tee boxes, just north of South Carolina's capital city
The champion-crowing event opens on Monday, April 20, and runs through Wednesday, April 22. The SoCon's automatic bid to the NCAA regional field goes to the event winner, with the individual medalist also earning an automatic regional qualification if she is not on the championship team.
The tournament will begin with threesomes teeing off at 8:30 a.m. on Monday. Live scoring for each round is available
online through the Scoreboard app, powered by Clippd.
Defending conference champion Furman seeks its fourth team title since 2022, led by the reigning individual medalist, Audrey Ryu. The Paladins, who won the first nine SoCon Women's Golf Championships and own a league-best 21 team titles all-time, had the lowest scoring average per round this season. Furman enters this year's championship as the No. 66 team in the Clippd rankings. The Paladins, along with Mercer (No. 101), Chattanooga (No. 102), and UNCG (No. 113), make up the top four SoCon teams in the national standings.
In addition to the Catamounts (No. 201) and aforementioned teams, the field also includes golfers from East Tennessee State (No. 168), Samford (No. 155), The Citadel (No. 282), and Wofford (No. 169). Paired with golfers from Palmetto State foes Wofford and The Citadel, Western Carolina's scoring five will open on the back nine off the 10th tee Monday at 8:30 a.m.
"The team is trending in the right direction heading into our conference championship," said WCU head coach
Anne Marie Covar. "In three out of our four spring events, we have broken our season-low 18-hole team score. I am really pleased with how we have progressed this season."
Covar added, "We've had some scores in the red in qualifying leading into conference, as well, which is always nice to see. We're not done yet, though, and the team is looking forward to continuing our upward trend this week at our conference championship."
Sophomore transfer Elsa Maren Steinarsdôttir leads the Catamount lineup into competition this week, ranked 25th in the latest Southern Conference rankings with a seasonal scoring average of 76.72. The Akranes, Iceland, product posted a team-best finish during the regular season, twice coming home in a sixth-place tie.
Graduate transfer
EC Niebauer (78.08) goes off as WCU's No. 2 seed, followed by sophomore
Annalee Caveney (79.56), who makes her second appearance in the SoCon Women's Golf Championship after competing in two of the three rounds last season. Rounding out the lineup are sophomore transfer
Emily Rosenschein (86.72) and senior
Sadler Miller (77.36), who has been battling through late-season injuries heading into the conference champion-crowning event.
Western Carolina posted six top-10 finishes as a team during the regular season, with a season-best sixth-place showing at the Wofford Invitational back in October. WCU had a second eighth-place seasonal finish this spring at the Puerto Rico Iguana Invitational. The Catamounts enter the week having carded a season-low team round of 295 its last time out at the Georgia-hosted Liz Murphey Intercollegiate.
Historically speaking, the Catamounts became just the second SoCon program to win the women's golf title back in 2003 in Waynesville, halting a string of nine-straight team titles by Furman. Brandy Andersen earned WCU's only individual medalist honor at the tournament for the WCU Hall of Fame 2002-03 squad. The Catamounts also won the 2007 championship in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. WCU has twice had the individual runner-up, as Hall of Famer Ashley Hovda (2005) and Bianca Melone (2006) both recorded second-place finishes.
All told, only five programs have claimed SoCon Women's Golf Championships dating back to 1994, with defending event champion Furman leading the way with 21 team championships, including the first nine. Chattanooga has won five titles, each in succession between 2010 and 2014, all at the Moss Creek Golf Club. WCU is third with two championships (2003, 2007), with ETSU winning its first-ever women's golf title in 2021 before again winning in 2024, and former league-member College of Charleston winning in 2006.
Complete results will be made available after play concludes each round through SoConSports.com and CatamountSports.com.
Keep track of everything related to Catamount women's golf and WCU Athletics through its social media outlets on Facebook (fb.com/catamountsports), Instagram (@wcu_catamounts), and Twitter (@catamounts, @CatamountWGolf).
