CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The No. 5 Virginia women’s golf team heads to the Midwest this week to compete in Northwestern’s Windy City Collegiate Classic. The two-day event features 36 holes of play on Monday, Oct. 3 and a single round on Tuesday, Oct. 4 at Exmoor Country Club in Highland Park, Ill. Teams will tee off starting at 7:30 a.m. each day. The Cavaliers will be paired with Michigan and Florida for the first day of competition.
The 15-team field includes 10 teams currently ranked in the top-30 of the latest Golfweek poll. Competing teams are: No. 11 Arizona, No. 18 Arizona State, No. 6 Duke, No. 13 Florida, Iowa State, No. 28 Michigan, No. 25 Michigan State, Northwestern, No. 9 Oregon, Purdue, USC, No. 7 South Carolina, No. 4 Texas and Washington.
UVA will field a team of sophomore Amanda Sambach, junior Jennifer Cleary, senior Celeste Valinho, sophomore Megan Propeck and graduate student Riley Smyth. Those five golfers have been the Cavaliers’ lineup for its previous two tournaments this fall.
Last year the Cavaliers were the runners-up in the 15-team field, shooting 22-over 886. Stanford won the 2021 tournament. Smyth led UVA with a fifth-place finish (+3, 219). Valinho, competing as an individual, was 10th at 221 while Sambach was 22nd at 226 and Cleary was 55th at 234. The 2021 tournament was held at Westmoreland Country Club in Wilmette, Ill.
Sambach, who is ranked No. 6 in the most recent Golfweek individual standings, leads the Cavaliers with a 69.0 stroke average. She opened the season with a win at the ANNIKA Intercollegiate.
Live scoring of the tournament is online at Golfstat.com.