Bandon, Oregon, United States: Winning a national championship for any athlete is an exhilarating feeling. Megha Ganne experienced such elation in 2024 when she helped the powerhouse Stanford University women’s golf programme collect its third NCAA title. But it wasn’t until a sun-splashed and breezy Sunday at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort that the 21-year-old got to experience such a feat as an individual.
Ganne, a rising senior competing in her seventh US Women’s Amateur (15th USGA championship), defeated 2025 Michigan State graduate Brooke Biermann 4&3, in the 36-hole championship match, becoming the fourth player associated with Stanford to etch her name on the Robert Cox Trophy. Previously, Anne Sander (1958, 1961, 1963), who attended the school officially sponsored golf before Title IX, Joanne Pacillo (1983) and Rose Zhang (2020) won titles. Ganne and Zhang were briefly team-mates on The Farm.
By winning the 125th edition of the world’s second-oldest women’s amateur competition, Ganne earns an exemption into next year’s US Women’s Open Presented by Ally at The Riviera Country Club, in California, as well as guaranteed spots on the 2025 USA Women’s World Amateur Team that will compete in Singapore in October. She also joins an illustrious list of champions that includes Babe Didrikson Zaharias, JoAnne Gunderson Carner, Juli Inkster, Beth Daniel, Morgan Pressel, Lydia Ko and Zhang.
The 22-year-old Biermann, playing in her final amateur event before LPGA Tour Qualifying School this fall, also earned a spot in the 2026 US Women’s Open, but would forfeit that spot should she turn professional.
“It’s so crazy,” said Ganne. “It’s so much harder than it seems to win one of these, and it takes not only a lot of patience, but so many things working in your favour: good health, good luck, good fortune, and good timing. All those things coming together just feels like it’s fate. I feel very blessed right now.”
Many who have followed Ganne’s amateur career, which included four visits to Augusta National Golf Club for the Drive, Chip & Putt Championship, appearances in the Junior Ryder Cup and Junior Solheim Cup, a semi-final run in the US Women’s Amateur at age 15, playing in the final pairing of the 2021 US Women’s Open and being low amateur at The Olympic Club as a 17-year-old, and a 3-0 performance on the victorious 2022 USA Curtis Cup Team, could see this moment coming.
It took a while for Ganne to figure out the mental fortitude it takes to win matches against top players. Five times – three US Women’s Amateurs and two US Girls’ Juniors – Ganne lost in the opening round of match play. In her final US Girls’ Junior in 2022, she was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. A year ago, she was bothered by a hip injury and then had to withdraw from the US Women’s Amateur at Southern Hills Country Club due to food poisoning on the morning of the first round.
But in Stanford’s run to the 2024 NCAA title at California’s Omni La Costa Resort & Spa she posted a 2-0 individual match-play record (her quarter-final match was not completed) that included a 4&3 win over UCLA’s Natalie Vu in the championship match.
This past May, Ganne went 2-0-1, but Stanford, which won the stroke play portion of the championship by 21 strokes, lost to Northwestern in the final. Among Ganne’s victims was then-world number one amateur Lottie Woad of Florida State in the semi-finals. Woad has since won on the LPGA Tour in 2025.
“I can’t say I loved how I played match play my whole life, but definitely worked on it the last three, four years, especially after going to Stanford,” said Ganne, a product of LPGA-USGA Girls Golf and The First Tee. “I really wanted to contribute points during our national championship. So, I was like just let’s figure out how to become a better match play player. I worked on it and changed my mentality a little bit.
“I think my match against Lottie gave me a lot of personal confidence. To see her doing so well on Tour now and knowing my game was right there with hers was a huge confidence booster for me this week.”
That gritty match play mindset was certainly required at Bandon Dunes where Mother Nature threw a variety of windy conditions at the competitors. Firm and fast playing conditions also created a stern test.
En route to the final, the number 11 player in the women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) dispatched three consecutive top-20 players – Americans Anna Davis (14) and Kary Hollenbaugh (20) and Thailand’s Eila Galitsky (6) – before rallying from four-down with seven to play in her 19-hole semi-final triumph over Australian Ella Scaysbrook, the 63rd seed who had never trailed in any of her matches until the last hole on Saturday.
Ganne never trailed against Biermann, but the match was tied after nine holes before a balky putter by the latter on holes 11 through 13 opened the door for the New Jersey native to grab a three-up lead by the lunch break.
Biermann, who survived three extra-hole matches to reach the final, never managed to cut the deficit closer than three-down the remainder of the match. Ganne converted a 35-foot birdie at the 22nd hole for a four-up lead. Biermann did convert winning birdie putts from 15 and three feet on holes 24 and 27, but in between she bogeyed the 25th hole when she missed the green and could not recover for par.
“Megha is a great player,” said Biermann, who had never made a cut in any of her five previous USGA appearances. “Unfortunately, the putter went cold today. Overall, I felt like I gave it my all and I had a blast out here. What a beautiful place to play in a finals match. I feel like this taught me a lot about myself. How I can push through adversity and under pressure make a lot of great putts.”
Ganne was conceded her birdie on the 29th hole when Biermann’s approach went over the green into a sandy area and she took two shots to reach the green. But Biermann answered with a 10-foot birdie on the par-five 31st hole. She just couldn’t sustain any momentum. She left her 25-footer from the fringe on the 32nd hole five feet short, and then missed the putt to go four-down with four to play.
Two putts by Ganne on the par-three 34th ended the festivities and drew applause from the approximately 350 spectators. She immediately put her hands over her face to take in the greatest moment of her golf career. Then it was time to celebrate, first with her Pebble Beach-based caddie Logan Goettsch, whom she first met when winning the Carmel Cup, a college event on the Monterey Peninsula.
Then she hugged parents Hari and Sudha, her long-time instructor Katie Rudolph, Stanford assistant coach Demi Runas and her manager at Excel Sports, Ashley Kim. Stanford women’s head coach Anne Walker was in Spain and sent upbeat text messages and photos of her family from afar.
It also culminated quite a summer for Stanford’s women’s golf team. Ganne’s team-mate Paula Martin Sampedro, second in the WAGR, won The Women’s Amateur at Nairn Golf Club, the European Women’s Amateur and posted a top-10 finish in the AIG Women’s Open. Now Ganne can bring back the Robert Cox Trophy to the Palo Alto, California, campus.
“I love playing any sort of tournament, but I really do love being in the spotlight,” said Ganne. “I like performing under pressure and I think it brings out the best in my game.”