Women's Golf | 10/14/2026 12:25:00 AM
WARREN, Ohio (pacathletics.org) - Westminster College surged into first place at the 2026 Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) Fall Women's Golf Championships and the Titans will take a 10-shot cushion into the 2027 spring championships.
The 36-hole fall event was hosted by the Avalon Golf & Country Club in Warren, Ohio. The women played two rounds at Squaw Creek Golf Course in Vienna.
This year's PAC Championships features a 72-hole stroke play event, beginning with 36 holes played this fall and another 36 holes played Friday-Saturday, April 23-24, 2027 at Mill Creek Metroparks and the Mill Creek Golf Course in Boardman, Ohio. The women will play two rounds on the North Course, while the men will play a pair of rounds on the South Course.
Day 1 Highlights
- A consistent Westminster lineup saw their top four players shoot between 83-87 in the opening round to score 343, while no other team had more than two players under 90.
- Posting the low rounds for the Titans was junior Ava Liburdi, who was fourth as an individual at 83, and senior Katie Rose Rankin, the two-time defending PAC Player of the Year, in seventh with an 86.
- Grove City College sophomore Emily Burling was the first-round leader after carding a 77, which also helped the Wolverines shoot 349 as a team to rank second behind Westminster.
- Just one shot behind Burling was senior Julia Barthelemy from the defending champion Washington & Jefferson College, who carded a 78.
- With Liburdi in fourth, Grove City senior Lauren Kardos was only one shot back in fifth place after an opening-round 84.
Day 2 Highlights
- Westminster's second round was very similar to the first with four players scoring under 90 and a 344 on Tuesday gave the Titans a two-day total of 687, 10 shots in front of Grove City (697/349-348).
- Liburdi again paced the Westminster side, this time scoring 81 for a two-round total of 164 to tie for fourth overall, while Rankin's second-straight 86 put her in sixth place at 172.
- Fall medalist honors went to W&J's Barthelemy, who used a par on the 18th hole to finish her second straight 78, the only player under 80 in the second round, and total 156 for the fall.
- Grove City's Burling will enter the spring one shot back on the leaderboard after her 80 on Tuesday gave the Wolverine sophomore a 157 through two rounds.
- Completing the top five on the leaderboard was Geneva's Madison Sharek, who is at 162 (79-83), and tied for fourth with Liburdi at 164 is Grove City's Kardos (83-81).
Team Standings
- With their leading score of 687, Westminster has now led three consecutive years following the PAC Fall rounds.
- Grove City's 697 puts them 16 strokes in front of third-place W&J (713). Ranking fourth is Allegheny College at 749, with Saint Vincent College in fifth (763), Bethany College in sixth (828), Waynesburg Univerity in seventh 9833), Geneva in eighth (859) and Franciscan University in ninth (861). Thiel College and Hiram College both have three players competing as individuals and are not scoring as teams.
- Saint Francis University played in their first PAC Championship event, as the Red Wolves begin conference competition while reclassifying from Division I to Division III. Saint Francis, whose results will not count in the conference during SFU's reclassifying process, scored 728 (362-366) through the initial two rounds.
Notables
- Barthelemy's 156 sets a new PAC mark for lowest Fall score, surpassing the previous mark of 158, set first by W&J's Leslie Walker (80-78) in 2009 and matched by Grove City's Esther Durling (79-79) in 2013.
- Barthelemy is also a two-time Fall medalist after she posted the low score in the 2024 Fall Championships (163). She is the first W&J player to be a multiple-time Fall medalist since Kaitlyn Vogel in 2016 and 2017.
- Burling's 157 also surpassed the previous PAC low Fall scores.
- The All-PAC teams, along with the PAC Players of the Year and PAC Newcomers of the Year, are determined by the combined 72-hole scores from the fall and spring championships. The All-PAC teams are made up of the top 15 overall scorers (5 first team, 5 second team, 5 honorable mention). Saint Francis' players can be recognized with PAC Coaches Honors in lieu of All-PAC recognition if they finish in the top 15 at conference championships.
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The combined 72-hole team totals determine PAC team champions and winners of the league's automatic-qualifying bid to the Division III Championships.
- The 2027 Division III Women's Championships are set for May 11-14 at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va.