Colorado University Athletics
Thursday, April 23
Dallas, Texas
All Day
Colorado
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First Round
Ellen O'Shaughnessy
Photo by: Scott Tan
Buffs Enter Season’s Final Chapter At Big 12 Championship
April 21, 2026 | Women's Golf
BOULDER — The final chapter of Colorado's 2025-26 women's golf season has begun and it's one the Buffaloes hope reads long with a storybook ending.
Colorado turns the page to the postseason, beginning with this week's Big 12 Women's Golf Championship, to be played April 23-25 at the Dallas Athletic Club in Dallas.
Colorado is the No. 11 seed in the 14-team championship and is currently ranked No. 47 in the latest Scoreboard national rankings. With a top-50 ranking highlighted by two tournament wins and two additional top-five finishes, the Buffaloes are in a good position to advance to their first NCAA Regional in eight years and hope to increase those chances with a solid showing at the Big 12 Championship.
"College golf is really divided into three separate chapters: the fall season, spring season, and now we're in the final chapter, which is postseason," Colorado head coach Madeleine Sheils said. "You have to treat each one separately, and take what you can from each chapter, but you need to treat each one as its own time of year."
The 54-hole event at the Dallas Athletic Club Gold Course will feature three rounds with 18 holes each day. The par-72 course, designed by Jack Nicklaus, will play at 6,270 yards for the championship and, by design, certainly retains its distinct features.
"(Jack Nicklaus design) typically puts a premium on your ball striking abilities and being able to get up and down around the greens," Sheils said. "The Big 12 seems to always set up its conference tournaments as a really challenging test, and we feel ready for that.
"We'll come up with a great game plan for the golf course after (Wednesday's) practice round," Sheils said. "Then it's a matter of staying composed, patient and positive. We can't play defense in golf, so we just need to focus on our own games and stay in a really good mindset, competing hard throughout the whole week."
Colorado will send its top five golfers, who have accounted for the majority of the team rounds this season. The Buffaloes are led by junior Carolyn Fuller, ranked No. 145 in the nation, who leads the team with a 72.79 stroke average. She has a team-best seven top 20 finishes, most recently tying for seventh place at the Chevron Silverado Showdown at 4-under-par.
Sophomore Ellen O'Shaughnessy is second on the team in stroke average at 73.64 and has the squad's best counting-toward-team-score rate at 92 percent. Vanessa Ngo is coming off a career-best 54-hole score of 5-under, 211, placing sixth at the Chevron Silverado Showdown.
Freshman Teemapat Pateetin and junior Maya McVey round out Colorado's Big 12 Championship entrants.
"This time of year it's really about trusting all the work that we've put in over the last nine months, trusting one another and I think this team really does a really nice job of that," Sheils said. "They've got great camaraderie, have a desire to compete and win and their games are in a nice place. So we're just going to trust all of that and enjoy this, hopefully long final chapter of the season."
Colorado will pair with 10-seed TCU and 12-seed Texas Tech in Thursday's first round. Those groups will begin on the back, teeing off from No. 10 beginning at 8:10 a.m. MT. Saturday's final round will be streamed live on ESPN+.
Colorado turns the page to the postseason, beginning with this week's Big 12 Women's Golf Championship, to be played April 23-25 at the Dallas Athletic Club in Dallas.
Colorado is the No. 11 seed in the 14-team championship and is currently ranked No. 47 in the latest Scoreboard national rankings. With a top-50 ranking highlighted by two tournament wins and two additional top-five finishes, the Buffaloes are in a good position to advance to their first NCAA Regional in eight years and hope to increase those chances with a solid showing at the Big 12 Championship.
"College golf is really divided into three separate chapters: the fall season, spring season, and now we're in the final chapter, which is postseason," Colorado head coach Madeleine Sheils said. "You have to treat each one separately, and take what you can from each chapter, but you need to treat each one as its own time of year."
The 54-hole event at the Dallas Athletic Club Gold Course will feature three rounds with 18 holes each day. The par-72 course, designed by Jack Nicklaus, will play at 6,270 yards for the championship and, by design, certainly retains its distinct features.
"(Jack Nicklaus design) typically puts a premium on your ball striking abilities and being able to get up and down around the greens," Sheils said. "The Big 12 seems to always set up its conference tournaments as a really challenging test, and we feel ready for that.
"We'll come up with a great game plan for the golf course after (Wednesday's) practice round," Sheils said. "Then it's a matter of staying composed, patient and positive. We can't play defense in golf, so we just need to focus on our own games and stay in a really good mindset, competing hard throughout the whole week."
Colorado will send its top five golfers, who have accounted for the majority of the team rounds this season. The Buffaloes are led by junior Carolyn Fuller, ranked No. 145 in the nation, who leads the team with a 72.79 stroke average. She has a team-best seven top 20 finishes, most recently tying for seventh place at the Chevron Silverado Showdown at 4-under-par.
Sophomore Ellen O'Shaughnessy is second on the team in stroke average at 73.64 and has the squad's best counting-toward-team-score rate at 92 percent. Vanessa Ngo is coming off a career-best 54-hole score of 5-under, 211, placing sixth at the Chevron Silverado Showdown.
Freshman Teemapat Pateetin and junior Maya McVey round out Colorado's Big 12 Championship entrants.
"This time of year it's really about trusting all the work that we've put in over the last nine months, trusting one another and I think this team really does a really nice job of that," Sheils said. "They've got great camaraderie, have a desire to compete and win and their games are in a nice place. So we're just going to trust all of that and enjoy this, hopefully long final chapter of the season."
Colorado will pair with 10-seed TCU and 12-seed Texas Tech in Thursday's first round. Those groups will begin on the back, teeing off from No. 10 beginning at 8:10 a.m. MT. Saturday's final round will be streamed live on ESPN+.
Players Mentioned
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