Duke redshirt sophomore Miranda Wang won the decisive match in extra holes to hand the Blue Devils’ women’s golf team the 2019 NCAA Women’s Golf Championship on Wednesday at Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark.

It’s the seventh NCAA title for the Duke women.

Wake Forest and Duke were tied 2-2 with just one match remaining between Letizia Bagnol and Wang. But Bagnol found the water on her second shot into the par-5 2nd hole — their 20th hole of the match — and later faced a three-footer for bogey. She picked it up and conceded the match when Wang nestled her birdie try to two feet away. The celebration came next.

For the seventh time in program history, @DukeWGolf has won the #NCAAGolf Women's National Championship 🏆 pic.twitter.com/T84FuDcJpw

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) May 23, 2019

Three of the five matches went into extra holes. Siyun Liu and Emilia Migliaccio won for Wake Forest, and Jaraavee Boonchant and Ana Belac won matches for Duke, all of which set the table for Wang’s clinching victory.

Boonchant’s win came in 19 holes against Wake Forest senior Jennifer Kupcho, the No. 1 ranked amateur who won the NCAA individual title last year and inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur in April. Kupcho, along with Arkansas senior Maria Fassi, will make their pro debuts at the U.S. Women’s Open next week. Both earned their LPGA status last fall but deferred their memberships.

Maria Fassi broke onto the national golf scene earlier this spring when she finished second to Jennifer Kupcho at the first-ever Augusta National Women’s Amateur ahead of the Masters. Now she has another accomplishment to add to her already stacked resume: NCAA champion.

The Arkansas Razorbacks senior shot a bogey-free five-under 68 during Monday’s final round to win the NCAA Championship at Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark., finishing at eight-under for the 54-hole tournament. Fassi, who trailed entering the final round, racked up three birdies on the front nine to take a one-shot lead at the turn. She tacked on two more birdies on the back nine to win the title by four strokes.

The win makes Fassi the second Razorback to win the national title. LPGA Tour pro Stacy Lewis won it for the Hogs in 2008. Fassi, along with Kupcho, earned her LPGA card for this year through Q-School last fall but deferred her membership to return to school.

“I’ve told coach (Shauna) Taylor many times that we were going to be walking down the fairway on 18 holding hands and that I would be the national champion,” Fassi said after her win. “It was way better than what I have imagined. Coming back to play for a national championship was one of the main reasons that I deferred my professional status. I think I’ve had a nice last couple of months, playing Augusta, winning the SECs and advancing to the national championship.”

Fassi’s Arkansas team is having a pretty good week too, as the Razorbacks will compete in the match play portion of the tournament for the first time ever after placing in the top eight following the third round.

Jennifer Kupcho called on Monday morning, from the NBC studios in New York City. She had just appeared on Today and was killing time until she taped The Tonight Show. This is the new normal for America’s sweetheart, after her starmaking performance at the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship. A few hours after her victory, on Saturday, Kupcho checked her phone, which surprisingly wasn’t emitting smoke. She had 250 text messages and so many social media notifications “I don’t really know how to count them,” she says with a laugh.

Life became even more surreal the next morning when Kupcho was a guest of honor at the Drive, Chip & Putt Championship. College golfers – even those ranked as the country’s No. 1 amateur — are used to toiling in anonymity, but Kupcho was besieged for autographs while strolling the grounds at Augusta National.

More than that, her many new fans just wanted to share the emotions they had experienced watching the first women’s tournament at a club that as recently as last decade defiantly defined itself by its retrograde all-male membership. “They were so excited about the golf we played, as well as the sportsmanship Maria [Fassi, the ANWA runner-up] and I had toward each other,” says Kupcho. “It was cute that everyone wanted to tell me about it.” She had a chance to chat with Patrick Reed and Bubba Watson – not as a fan but as a fellow competitor who has also become a part of Augusta National lore.

The mutual respect was palpable. After all, Kupcho had just produced the most electric back nine the course has seen since 1986, when Jack Nicklaus also played the final six holes in five-under par. But the conversation that meant the most to Kupcho was with Angela Zhang, the winner of the 7-9 year-old division in the Drive, Chip & Putt. “Honestly, she seemed a little bit in awe,” says Kupcho, with another laugh. “I told her to keep working hard and maybe some day we would be playing together. That seemed to really amaze her. How cool is it that Maria and I can now be that kind of inspiration for so many little girls?”

This is all rich fodder for Kupcho’s Sociology class at Wake Forest, which focuses on gender in sports. “Mostly the inequality,” she says with a sigh. She has a big paper due soon, and also one in her Education class, for which she has embedded in a third-grade classroom to observe the teacher and students. And then there’s Introduction to Western Music, for which Kupcho is supposed to listen to tunes every day. The class recently binged on Bach, Beethoven and Mozart but Kupcho says, “I don’t even know what this current unit is about. I’m a little behind.” Presumably, the professors at Arnold Palmer’s alma mater will cut her a little slack.

Kupcho will return to Wake on Monday night, and be back in the classroom by 9:30 the next morning, going hard until her Communications class ends at 9 p.m. (They are studying the films of Lars von Trier; “Wow, is he an interesting one,” Kupho says.) There is precious little time to celebrate her latest victory. “I gotta get ready for next week’s ACC Championship!” she says. The NCAAs will follow and then Kupcho will turn pro, having suddenly become one of the game’s hottest commodities.

Come what may in this endless future of hers, Kupcho’s star turn at Augusta National will always define her, in the same way that Tiger Woods’s breakthrough there remains his most important performance. “The last few days I’ve been talking a lot about it and thinking a lot about it but it’s still kind of impossible to put into words what this has meant to me,” Kupcho says. “I have made memories that are going to last a lifetime. I feel so lucky to have experienced all of this.”

Given Kupcho’s talent and charm and broad perspective, it’s the golf world that is lucky, to have her as its newest ambassador. How cool under pressure is this young woman? Rushing to New York at a moment’s notice for her media blitz, Kupcho realized she didn’t really have anything to wear. “But then I found a pair of clean pants,” she says, “so all good.”

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AUGUSTA, Ga. – What happens to a dream deferred? On an historic afternoon on an iconic course, it can turn into a dream showdown.

Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi – the only two players in the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur field to have deferred their LPGA Tour qualification until after their senior seasons in college – dueled head-to-head in the final pairing at Augusta National Golf Club on Saturday to provide an unforgettable exclamation point to a ground-breaking week for women’s golf.

Kupcho, the top-ranked amateur in the world, endured a migraine headache that corrupted her vision for three holes and yielded her wire-to-wire lead before catching fire on the famous second nine with an eagle and two birdies in a four-hole stretch that took her from two down to two up. She buried a 30-foot birdie putt on the last hole to elicit an appreciative roar from the patrons and become the first female champion at Augusta National.

Kupcho, a Wake Forest senior, shot 5-under 67 in the final round to finish 10-under, four shots ahead of Mexico’s Fassi, a senior at Arkansas. Yuka Saso of the Philippines and Yuka Yasuda of Japan tied for third at two under while 16-year-old Zoe Campos and Kaitlyn Papp tied for fifth at one under.

“I really think we’re going to start something great in women’s golf,” said Kupcho after receiving her Tiffany trophy. “It’s been an experience of a lifetime and I’m glad I have it.”

Tied with Fassi after seven holes, Kupcho developed a migraine on the eighth that left everything on the left side of her vision blurry. It was a problem she largely hadn’t dealt with since high school. She couldn’t see the lines of her putt when she looked at the ball and three-putted the 10th hole to fall two shots behind.

“I couldn’t really be mad at myself,” she said of her first three putt in seven competitive rounds. “I just told myself, ‘Hey, you got it. Relax. There’s nothing you can do.’ I just knew that the blurriness would go away, and then I know it just comes with a bad headache after, so I was going to be able to recover.”

The blurriness lifted in the 11th fairway and she went into catch-up mode. With 211 yards to the hole on the par-5 13th hole, Kupcho delivered a laser-like 3-hybrid to six feet and drained the eagle putt to erase her two-shot deficit.

“I would say that’s probably one of the best shots I’ve ever hit,” said the reigning NCAA individual champion. “At that point, since I was two back, I just kind of knew I needed to make a big move.”

Fassi, however, answered with a birdie on 14 to go back on top. Kupcho again gave herself an eagle chance at 15 while Fassi had to lay up after missing the fairway. Kupcho’s putt from just off the back edge nestled to two inches for another birdie to square what had all day been a two-player match.

The decisive moment came on the 16th hole, where Kupcho rolled in a six-foot birdie putt and Fassi three-putted from the top right of the green for a tie-breaking two-shot swing.

Fassi, the most powerful player in the field, was the aggressor early, overcoming a bogey on the opening hole to make birdies on 2, 3, 7 and 8 to track down Kupcho and take the lead before her friendly rival battled back with her pin-seeking on the par 5s.

“That’s one of the things I admire and respect most about her; she’s not afraid of going for it,” Fassi said. “She’s not afraid to be great, and that’s what makes her great. I’m extremely happy that she got that win. Of course, I would have liked that to be me but I’m extremely happy that it was her. She deserves it so much.”

Kupcho gave no inch down the stretch. Fassi could only applaud her friend as they walked up the 18th hole surrounded by patrons. Fassi gave Kupcho a long embrace and whispered how proud she was of her performance.

“I said, ‘You need to get used to this because we’re going to be doing it a lot in the future on the LPGA Tour,’ ” Fassi said. “I think that is what women’s golf should look like every Sunday on the last group. It’s the players’ responsibility for it to be like that.”

Kupcho believed the two players who deferred turning professional set the proper tone for an event designed to inspire young women to play golf.

“Coming out with Maria in the final group with me, I think both of us kind of just wanted to send the message that golf is about having friends, and to be out there with her, we were cheering each other on, and that’s kind of how golf is supposed to be,” Kupcho said. “And to make it look fun; it is fun. So to make it look that way for everyone watching, I hope it encourages people to pick up a club and go play.”

The day provided everything anyone could have hoped for as a showcase for the women’s game on the iconic host venue for the Masters Tournament. It had all the trappings of the major championship that will start on the same tee in five days.

Club chairman Fred Ridley, who announced the creation of the event a year ago, welcome four Hall of Famers to officially open the event as honorary starters. Se Ri Pak, Lorena Ochoa, Nancy Lopez and Annika Sorenstam each hit drives right down the middle of the fairway under the watchful gaze of thousands of patrons and dozens of green jackets, including two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson.

Then nobody moved as University of Virginia senior Anna Redding nervously stepped to the tee at 8 a.m. to hit the first shot in competition by a woman in the 85-year history of the club. A crowd presumed to be about two-thirds the size of a regular Masters gallery, created a unique atmosphere for mostly collegiate players unaccustomed to so much attention.

“I was shaking, I can tell you that,” said Redding, whose historic firsts included a whiff, double and birdie in the first two holes. “I’ve never seen this many people out on a golf course. I haven’t been to the Masters, so this is as many people as there’s ever been. This is way more that’s ever watched me hit a golf shot. I mean, the four Hall of Famers were sitting right there. So was Bubba Watson, the chairman. My goodness, there was a lot of pressure but it was so fun, just to have this opportunity to hit a golf shot at Augusta, in competition, was enough. And to be the first, it means a lot.”

The experience left Redding, and many other young women in the field, emotional. Redding was disappointed in her 76 and tie for 26th, but thrilled for being part of something significant in women’s golf.

“It does, I’m not going to lie,” a tearful Redding said regarding whether her score mattered on the biggest stage she’s ever played on. “I wanted to shoot a lot better than I did. … Oh, my goodness, since I knew the invitations were coming out and I had it in my hands, I’ve been so excited for this day. This has exceeded my expectations by miles. Again, there are so many people out here to support women’s golf, and that’s so special.”

The inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur has become a head-to-head showdown between the two competitors in the final pairing: Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi. No surprise, as both are among the best collegiate golfers in the game today. In fact, both players have earned cards for status on the LPGA tour.

Kupcho is the reigning NCAA champion and top-ranked amateur in the women’s game. She’s also obliterated multiple records at Wake Forest. Fassi is ninth in the amateur standings, a first-team All-American and was the 2018 SEC Player of the Year. In other words, neither of these ladies is a fluke. It wouldn’t be a surprise if this is the final Augusta National Women’s Amateur for both players.

Kupcho began the day with a one-shot edge over Fassi. But Fassi claimed the lead with a birdie at the par-5 8th. Kupcho eagled the famed 13th to tie Fassi at eight under, but Fassi drained another birdie putt on 14 to reclaim the lead. Both players are five shots clear of their nearest competitors, so expect the final hour at Augusta National will be match play. And expect and exciting finish.

Here’s the tale of the tape between these two talented amateurs who are vying for the title at Augusta National.

JENNIFER KUPCHO

Hometown: Westminster, Colo.
School: Wake Forest
Age: 21
Year: Senior
World Amateur Golf Ranking: 1
Collegiate and Amateur titles: 8
NCAA Champion: 2018
Best Finish: 1st (seven times)

—Holds eight school records at Wake Forest
—Finished 21st at 2017 U.S. Women’s Open
—Earned full status on LPGA at Q-Series: 2018
—First player in Colorado history to be named both the Colorado Women’s Golf Association Player of the Year and Junior Player of the Year in the same season

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrO06hal4Ww/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUf1rrFAAXi/

MARIA FASSI

Hometown: Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico
School: University of Arkansas
Age: 20
Year: Senior
World Amateur Golf Ranking: 9
Collegiate and Amateur titles: 8
Best Finish: 1st (seven times)

—Competed in 2016, 2017 and 2018 U.S. Women’s Open
—Top-ranked female amateur in Mexico
—Earned full status on LPGA at Q-Series: 2018
—Finished high school early to joins Arkansas in second semester in January 2016

https://www.instagram.com/p/7JUOwKQgr-/