Perth’s Hira Naveed today won the second tournament of the American collegiate season.
Naveed, a senior at Pepperdine University near Los Angeles, became the first female golfer in school history to win twice in the autumn season, with a three-under closing 68 good enough to share the Stanford Intercollegiate crown with UCLA’s Mariel Galdiano.
"This one's a little weird, being co-champs, but a win is a win at the end of the day, so it's pretty cool,” Naveed said.
“I was able to keep my composure all three days, didn't get too ahead of myself, stayed in the moment and just took one shot at a time (and) didn't worry about the result.
“It's not fun having a big gap (between now and the spring season) but it's more time to work on my game and really fine-tune some things.
“I'll get to go home for Christmas and will enjoy my time off, but at the same time I'm going to keep working and progressing."
That progress has been stark already this year for the multiple Western Australia state team representative.
Naveed won the season-opening Dick McGuire Invitational for her first college victory in September and remarkably finished no worse than seventh in each of her four fall tournaments with 10 of her 12 rounds under par.
She is the first Pepperdine athlete with two wins in a season since Marissa Chow in 2014-15, but no Wave had previously won twice before the winter break. The only Wave to win more than twice in a single season was Queenslander Katherine Hull, now Kirk, with four victories in 2002-03.
Head coach Laure Gibbs was excited by Naveed’s progress.
“Hira has a plan to be ready to compete on the LPGA Tour after graduation next spring,” Gibbs said.
“She is doing all the right things to improve all aspects of her game and the results reflect her focus."
Naveed, already the September golfer of the month in the West Coast Conference, began the round in third place, four shots behind Galdiano.
But the 20-year-old posted a flawless final round at Stanford Golf Course, nailing three birdies in her first nine holes after starting on the fourth hole, then finishing with nine straight pars.
She had a team-best 12 birdies for the tournament and with 38 pars in her rounds of 67-70-68, she was only two off the tournament high.
Naveed's 54-hole total of eight under was a personal best and tied the seventh-best tournament score in Pepperdine history. This weekend, she also climbed into the Waves' all-time top five for sub-par rounds with 26 in her career as her team finished seventh.
Melbourne’s Gabi Ruffles finished T31 individually at four over in total, but her USC team topped the table with a massive 15-shot margin at -15 with host Stanford next best at even par.