Jennifer Kupcho from Wake Forest University, Stanford University’s Andrea Lee, Leona Maguire of Duke University and Monica Vaughn from Arizona State University are the four nominees for the Honda Sport Award for Golf as announced by Chris Voelz, Executive Director of THE Collegiate Women Sports Awards (CWSA) today.
The Honda Sport Award has been presented annually by the CWSA for the past 41 years to the top women athletes in 12 NCAA- sanctioned sports and signifies “the best of the best in collegiate athletics”. The winner of the sport award becomes a finalist for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and the prestigious 2017 Honda Cup which will be presented on a live telecast on CBS Sports Network on Monday, June 26, 2017, in downtown Los, Angeles.
The nominees were chosen by a combination of NCAA Championship finishes and national golf rankings. The Honda Sport Award winner for Golf will be announced later this week after voting by administrators from over 1,000 NCAA member schools. Each NCAA member institution has a vote.
Kupcho, a sophomore from Westminster, Colo., was the 2017 NCAA Championship runner-up and was named a Ping/Women’s Golf Coaches Association (WGCA) first-team All-American. She set a school record in scoring average with a 70.61 on the season and ranked second in GolfStat.com rankings. A two-time All-ACC honoree, she finished the season with three victories, three runner-up finishes and a top-10 finish in all but one event.
Named the WGCA Freshman of the Year, Lee led Stanford at the NCAA Championship with a sixth-place finish and broke the Stanford rookie scoring record with a 71.62 stroke average. The rookie from Hermosa Beach, Calif., is a Ping/WGCA first-team All-American and earned All-Pac-12 first-team honors in her first collegiate season. She won three individual tournaments and recorded seven top three finishes while shooting par or better 16 times in 29 rounds.
Maguire is a two-time Honda Award nominee after making the ballot in 2015. The junior from Cavan, Ireland was named the Ping/WGCA Player of the Year and earned the GolfStat Cup for the best scoring average versus par during a season. She is a two-time runner-up at the NCAA Championship and her 70.29 stroke average was a Duke season record. She is a three-time first-team Ping/WGCA All-American and a three-time All-ACC honoree. On the season, she posted eight top-five finishes and shot nine rounds in the 60’s.
Vaughn, a senior from Reedsport, Ore., captured the 2017 NCAA Championship individual title and completed her senior season with a 71.53 stroke average. She is a two-time Ping/WGCA All-American and an All-Pac-12 first-team honoree. She closed her career with five top-three finishes in her last six tournaments, including the NCAA Championships and had eight top-10 finishes on the year. She is a three-time first-team Pac-12 Academic honoree and was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District team.
Honda Sport award winners will be presented with the honor during on-campus presentations throughout the year and all Honda Sport award winners become a finalist for the prestigious 2017 Honda Cup award presented in June.
THE Collegiate Women Sports Awards has honored the nation’s top NCAA women athletes for 41 years, recognizing superior athletic skills, leadership, academic excellence and eagerness to participate in community service. Since commencing its sponsorship in 1986, Honda has provided more than $3.1 million in institutional grants to the universities of the award winners and nominees to support women’s athletics programs at the institutions.