In her two seasons at Stanford, Rose Zhang dominated women’s college golf like few others, winning 12 titles and becoming the first woman to win the NCAA individual championship twice before turning pro in 2023. Yet, as the cliché goes, records are meant to be broken, and one of Zhang’s more impressive accomplishments at Stanford fell earlier this week—topped by another hot-shot Cardinal freshman.
Meja Ortengren, a 20-year-old from Sweden, shot a nine-under 201—propelled by 62 in her second round—for a runaway victory at the San Diego State Classic. Ortengren made 19 birdies over 54 holes at Bernardo Heights Country Club to outpace teammate and runner-up Paula Martin Sampedro by eight shots. That’s one stroke more than Zhang’s all-time best margin of victory while with the Cardinal, who twice won by seven.
It was Ortengren’s first win since arriving at school in the fall, improving on what’s already been an impressive freshman season. Oretengren has finished no worse than T-5 in her four college starts, with a stroke average of 69.33. As first reported by Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine, Ortengren’s last non top-10 finish in an amateur or college event came at last year’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur (missed cut).
Ortengren’s performance helped pace Stanford to the team title—its sixth straight stroke play win dating back to last spring. The Cardinal shot 31 under to win by 32 shots over UNLV, and remain unbeaten during the 2024-25 season. Also finishing in the top 10 in San Diego were Kelly Xu (T-4), Megha Ganne (T-6) and Nora Sundberg (T-10).
Oretengren is the third Cardinal to claim an individual win this season, along with Martin Sampedro and Ganne.
While Stanford has claimed two of the last three NCAA team titles (and three since 2015), the current squad might just be the deepest coach Anne Walker has since taking over the program in 2012. Six members of the team have qualified for this year’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur: Ortengren, Ganne, Andrea Revuelta, Martin Sampedro, Xu and Sundberg.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
