The ANWA's Secret Sauce: How Elite Teams Are Redefining Women's Amateur Golf
You watch these girls play. Some of them, anyway. You see the shots. The sheer bloody talent. And you think, ‘Damn.’ You really do. It’s not just about hitting it far. It’s about the whole damn package. The pressure. The skill. The sheer guts. And right now, if you want to see where women’s golf is heading, you gotta look at the teams. Especially the stacked ones. The ones that make even seasoned coaches go, ‘Wow.’ It’s a thing. A real thing.
Stanford's Secret Weapon: Pure Competition
Anne Walker, she coaches at Stanford. Good coach. Knows her stuff. She’s got this team. This Cardinal team. And they are something else. Every Tuesday and Thursday, it’s like a major out there. Her top players, battling it out. Just to make the damn lineup for the next tournament. Walker, she tries to keep it together. But sometimes? She just blurts it out. ‘Wow.’ Can’t help it. Can’t stop it.
She’ll be standing there, watching these absolute studs rip it. And the words just escape. ‘Wow.’ Then she catches herself. ‘Dude, you can’t be that old lady on the tee box, like, ‘Oh, you hit it so far!” But that’s the deal. That’s what she’s built. A powerhouse. Built on a few simple things: love, trust, joy. And yeah, a hell of a lot of competition. It’s how they roll at Stanford. It’s in their DNA. And this current squad? They’ve taken it to another level. They feed off each other. Pushing, always pushing.
This week, though, is different. This week, all that internal grind? It’s for the biggest stage. Augusta National. The Women’s Amateur. The ANWA. And Walker gets to watch her five stars. Her ‘number ones,’ she calls them. All heading to that hallowed ground. To compete. For real.
The ANWA Dream Team: A Stacked Lineup
You’ve got Megha Ganne. She won the U.S. Women’s Amateur last summer. Back for her sixth ANWA. Then there’s Paula Martin Sampedro. She cleaned up last summer too. British Amateur, Ladies European Amateur. She’s playing in her third ANWA. So are Andrea Revuelta and Kelly Xu. And Meja Ortengren? She’s making her second trip to Augusta.
These aren’t just good players. These are the best. Sampedro is No. 2 in the Women’s Amateur Golf Rankings. Revuelta is No. 3. Ortengren is No. 5. Ganne is No. 6. And Xu? She’s No. 20. You add that up, their average ranking is a ridiculous 7.2. That’s insane. For any team. In any sport.
Walker talks about it. The cohesiveness. It’s rare. She’s been at Stanford 13 years. All her teams are close. But this group? It’s different. Sampedro and Revuelta? Grew up together in Spain. Ganne and Xu? Played Junior Solheim Cup together. Ortengren and Nora Sundberg? Grew up together in Sweden. The connections are everywhere. It’s not just a team. It’s a family. A collective. In a sport that’s supposed to be all about the individual. It creates this comfort. This safety net. That lets them go even higher. Push even harder.
More Than Just Talent: The Stanford Ethos
This team is loaded. Absolutely loaded. Walker calls Sampedro “the little engine that could.” Smart player. Driven. Loves the game. You see it in how she works. Every single day. Then there’s Xu. A senior. A coach’s dream. She wants the truth. Always. ‘I don’t know what I don’t know, and I’m going to go seek the answers,’ that’s Xu. That’s the kind of player coaches dream about.
And Ganne? Her impact on Stanford golf? It’s gonna be felt long after she’s gone. A void. Even before her college career is officially over. ‘She’s gonna leave such a huge hole in our program, because she’s such a presence,’ Walker says. ‘She’s such a presence that not only will her departure be felt within our program, it’s also going to be felt within our men’s program.’ You don’t hear that about many players. Male or female. That’s the development of Megha Ganne.
This isn’t the first time Stanford has sent five players to Augusta for the ANWA. It’s become a thing. A Cardinal tradition. Since the ANWA started, Augusta National’s color for the week has practically been Cardinal Red. Rose Zhang is the only Cardinal to win it. But Stanford’s been there. Year after year. Intertwined with the event’s DNA.
But this 2026 group? They’re the ones who truly embody what Stanford women’s golf is all about. And what the ANWA, still so young, is becoming. A connection. A powerful one.
The ANWA's True Gift: Inspiring Dreams
Megha Ganne knows what this means. ‘I don’t take it lightly, and I know how special it is, and I know what a privilege it is to have this spotlight for all of us playing this tournament,’ she said last year. She keeps that perspective. Even when a shot doesn’t go her way. She holds onto the bigger picture.
‘I think it’s the most exciting week in amateur golf, men’s or women’s, period, in my opinion,’ Ganne continues. ‘I think everyone in golf knows about it. They might not know about certain other tournaments, but when this one’s happening, people tune in. It just draws so much attention in the best way, and these women carry themselves in such a great way.’ She’s excited to see where it goes. Though, honestly, how much better can it get?
Andrea Revuelta felt it too. ‘Playing Augusta last year was like a dream come true for me,’ she says. ‘Everything there is just so special and magical that it makes you really want to like — it really made me want to push myself this year to come here and practice and do well in this tournament.’ For a lot of young girls, Augusta National is the motivation. The ultimate goal.
And Kelly Xu? She gets it. She really gets it. Her Stanford bio tells the story. The course designed by Alister MacKenzie and Bobby Jones shaped her journey. At the bottom, it reads: First female champion at Augusta National (Inaugural Drive, Chip and Putt, age 7-9 group). How’s that for a connection?
Xu and Augusta. They’ve got a thing. Every golfer imagines playing there. It’s a dream. A driver of their golf journey. But for Xu, it’s real. Tangible. She feels it deep down. ‘I’m just really so, just so blessed to have it feel kind of full circle, and have that have such a big part of my golf arc, the arc of my golf journey, almost like revolve around Augusta,’ she told GOLF. That early experience with Drive, Chip and Putt? It taught her something. At a young age. That this game is more than just competing for yourself. It’s about grasping a deeper meaning. The history. The tradition. It made her realize it’s more than just a game.
This is Xu’s last ANWA. Her final appearance. But her time at Augusta, a place steeped in tradition, a place that historically excluded women and people of color, has her seeing the bigger picture. Kelly Xu wants to win the ANWA. Of course she does. But more than that, she wants to be a force. A driving force for young girls. Girls who grew up like she did. Getting them into the game. Making them dream big. Believing they, too, can walk those fairways. Become part of Augusta’s story.
‘I want to show that it’s possible for other municipal kids to one day play at Augusta, one day you can play at this level — like this is who you can be,’ Xu says passionately. ‘And I’m always striving to be that version of myself that my nine-year-old self would be proud of because I was not, you know, I was practicing at a municipal, and I was so lucky to have been able to encounter Augusta that early on.’ Everything she does, it’s for that bigger dream. That bigger purpose.
The Ripple Effect: ANWA's Impact on the Game
That dream, that purpose – that’s part of the promise of the ANWA. It elevates. It shines a spotlight. On women’s amateur golf. In a way nothing else really has. The biggest gift of the ANWA? It’s still unfolding. We don’t know what it fully is yet. But Anne Walker sees it. She sees the long-term impact. When she was a young golfer in Scotland, dreaming of going pro, Augusta National wasn’t even on her radar. She watched the Masters, sure. But playing there? Never in a million years. That just wasn’t how the story went.
But the stars on her team? They’ve lived a different reality. They’ve etched the most famous golf course in the world into their aspirations. Chasing a win that would be as big as any major. As ‘much of a career highlight’ as anything. If you want kids to dream big, you have to give them a reason to believe. A world where those dreams can actually come true. And that’s the world they’re living in now.
‘These young kids, they don’t remember a time when Augusta wasn’t an option for them, and it’s the pinnacle of amateur golf,’ Walker says. ‘And they get to, in their mind, picture themselves hitting the same shots that Scottie [Scheffler’s] about to hit, hitting the same shots that will be replayed of Tiger chipping in at 16. They get to dream at night about that, and that just spurs them on in their progress.’
She can’t even wrap her head around the influence. The impact the ANWA has had. On women’s golf. And it’s still growing. ‘I think they took the top end of the game and they creeped it higher, and they took the bottom end of the game, and they creeped it higher, everyone moved up,’ Walker explains. Because now, when they go to bed at night, they’re dreaming of hitting the shots that are legendary. Shots etched in history. ‘Now, we too can do that.’
This week at Augusta, Walker won’t have to hold back. She won’t have to be ‘the old lady on the tee box’ cheering. She can let it all out. Feel every emotion with her five stars. As they chase their dreams. And a place in history. On those sacred grounds.
When that final putt drops, win or lose, they will have left their mark. They will have left the women’s amateur game in a better place than when they arrived. That’s a gift. One that can’t be bought. And it’s all on display this week at Augusta National. You should watch. Seriously. It’s good. Damn good.
For more on the world of women’s golf and major championships, check out the Masters Tournament history and see how this iconic event has evolved.