Two Years, Two Champions – Stanford Cardinal

WILMINGTON, N.C. — Paula Martín Sampedro became the 2026 ACC individual champion on Friday afternoon at Porters Neck Country Club, tying the conference scoring record while Stanford women’s golf sits atop the leaderboard following stroke play.

For the second year in a row, Stanford will enter the match play portion of the ACC Championship as the top seed. The Cardinal set a new ACC Championship scoring record of 831 (-33), besting the team’s mark of 837 (-27) from last year that tied the record. To get there, all five Stanford golfers finished under par, the only team in the field to do so. Only one other team had four golfers under par – SMU. Not only did every golfer in Stanford’s lineup get under par, but all five were at least two strokes below.

With a 33-stroke under-par finish, it’s the fifth-best team score in Stanford history and the best in a conference championship. Only Stanford’s record-setting 50-under in the 2023 NCAA Pullman Regional has been better in the postseason.

It was a historic ACC Championship for Martín Sampedro, who tied the ACC scoring record of 202 (-14), a mark her teammate Andrea Revuelta posted during last year’s conference title. Her run to becoming an ACC champion was nearly flawless. She birdied just one time over 36 holes of stroke play, and all three rounds were scored in the 60s. The 202 is tied for the eighth-best round in program history and joins Revuelta as the best in a conference championship by a Cardinal.

Rianne Malixi of Duke gave Martín Sampedro a run for her title. Malixi went 3-under on the front nine and pulled within one stroke of the lead through nine holes, but she then bogeyed on 10 and never recorded a birdie the rest of the round. Holding a two-stroke lead with two remaining, Martín Sampedro knocked down a birdie putt on 17 to ice the win.

Martín Sampedro joins Mariah Stackhouse with four career wins, tied for the sixth-most in Stanford women’s golf history. Also making Stanford history, it is the first time Stanford has had consecutive individual conference champions. Four Stanford women’s golfers have claimed individual medalist honors at a conference championship over the last six years.

For the second time in her career, Kelly Xu finishes top-five in a conference championship. The senior from Claremont began the day in fourth and opened with consecutive bogeys, but then played 3-under the remainder of the round to finish with a 1-under 71, landing at 209 (-7) for…