Florida State won its first ACC women’s golf title in program history on Saturday.
This one meant more than anyone could’ve imagined at the start of the championship.
Head coach Amy Bond huddled her Seminoles on four different occasions the past few days at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, partly to make sure they were alright.
Florida State was making the turn during Thursday’s final round of stroke play when Bond’s phone received an alert of an active-shooter situation back on campus. Bond attempted to keep the news from her players until after play, but word quickly spread. A gunman had opened fire near Florida State’s student union, killing two and wounding six others, including students.
The Seminoles ended the day in a tie for second with Virginia, 15 shots behind top-ranked Stanford, and punched their match-play ticket as the second seed via tiebreaker. The top two amateurs in the world, No. 1 Lottie Woad and No. 2 Mirabel Ting, each tied for third individually, marking Woad’s ninth top-3 finish in as many starts this season and adding to Ting’s impressive resume, which includes five wins. But the post-round meeting was more somber than celebratory.
“Our hearts were certainly in Tallahassee and with our Florida State family and our Tallahassee community, but the big push was, let’s honor them,” Bond said. “We really just tried to be where our feet were, so as we had heavy hearts, we just tried to go out there and play golf. The one thing that we could control was us at that moment, and they did a good job of that.
“And we played for the people at home.”
The Seminoles, ranked third nationally, rested on Friday morning before beating Cal, 4-1, in the semifinals behind wins from Ting, Woad, senior Kaylah Williams and freshman Sophia Fullbrook, who was 4 up in her match before being pulled off the golf course. That earned Florida State a matchup not with Stanford but rather reigning ACC champion Wake Forest, who had knocked off the Cardinal, 3-2, in the other semifinal to end Stanford’s run at a perfect season.
Not that Florida State breathed any sigh of relief; it was just two years ago that the Demon Deacons beat the Seminoles in both the ACC final and in match play at the NCAA Championship.
The Demon Deacons rode their momentum to two big wins, Anne-Sterre den Dunnen over Woad and Macy Pate over Fullbrook. With Ting easily beating midseason arrival Chloe Kovelesky, Florida State was down 2-1 with the final two matches coming down to the wire – and the Seminoles needed them both.
Williams lost her 1-up lead to Sarah Lydic heading into the par-5 18th hole, but she’d birdie to earn one of those points. That left Alexandra Gazzoli, the other freshman in Florida State’s starting lineup, who was tied with first-team All-American Carolina Chacarra after 14 holes before grinding out a 1-up win of her own, capped by a winning par at the last after Chacarra carded bogey to seal the 3-2 overall win for the Seminoles.
When it became official, Bond wept.
Her team had come together to accomplish something that had never been done before them. All five players had won at least one match, too.
“We’ve played well this spring,” said Bone, whose team has now won six straight tournaments. “But come crunch time, when it really counts, I was just so excited to see them battle through when their backs were against the wall. For the putts to fall in for us this time, this gives them so much confidence and it proves a lot that this team can get the job done.”
But there was even more.
“By far,” Bond added when asked if this was the proudest she’s been of a group of players. “I’m extremely proud. I cried when we got done, and I’ll probably cry a couple more times tonight. You know, at times today I think there was a lot of doubt, but in the end, we came through and did it as a group. I’m thrilled that our little family of ours came together, did what they needed to do with all that was going on this week, and we’re coming home with a championship.”
When Bond boarded the team’s flight from Greensboro to Atlanta on Saturday evening, she was relieved to see that it wasn’t full. So, she quickly buckled the championship hardware into a seat and snapped a few photos.
The precious cargo had to ride in the closet, but Bond didn’t mind.
The trophy was coming home to Tallahassee, to a campus and a community that very much needed it.
