Malaysian ladies amateur No 1 Alyaa Abdulghany ended her US collegiate golf career for the University of Southern California (USC) on Monday (May 24) with a T36 finish in the individual strokeplay of the 2021 NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.
In her final outing as a senior on USC’s women’s golf team – aka the ‘Trojans’ – Alyaa carded rounds of 75, 75, 69 and 75 for a six-over-par 294 total. With USC finishing 54 holes in 23rd place in the team standings and not making the fourth and final round reserved for the leading 15 teams, the 22-year-old made it through as one of the top nine individuals not on a progressing team.
This was Alyaa’s third appearance in the NCAA Championship, having tied for 27th as a freshman in 2018 and finishing T29 as a sophomore in 2019. On both occasions, USC progressed to the matchplay stage for the top eight teams, where Alyaa won both her ties in 2018 and her quarterfinal match in 2019. The NCAA Championship did not take place in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Alyaa wraps her Trojan career with a 72.91 stroke average, which is the 14th best in USC’s history, following a 72.64 stroke average in her senior year.
The other Malaysian in the NCAA Championship, Ashley Lau of the University of Michigan ‘Wolverines’, missed out on the final strokeplay round after carding scores of 72, 72 and 78. The Wolverines placed 20th in the team standings after 54 holes.
