Inside the path KU women’s golf took to earn its second ever NCAA regional at-large bid

LAWRENCE — When Lindsay Kuhle took over as head coach of the Kansas women’s golf team in 2021, she had reason to believe she could accomplish her vision for building the program.

Kuhle saw how excited Travis Goff, the Jayhawks’ athletic director, was about his own vision for the department as a whole. She admired the team’s facilities and administrative support. It was just a matter of putting in the work.

But as Kuhle reflected Thursday, amid her second season in charge, what was on her mind then was more of a three-to-five year plan. She didn’t anticipate what she and her team had celebrated just a day earlier would happen so soon. Right now, after earning the program’s second-ever at-large selection for a NCAA regional, they are ahead of schedule.

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“I’m really big on vision and vision boards and talking about it and goals and analysis, and that’s exactly what we did this year to get to that point,” Kuhle said. “We had the right people on the bus that saw the vision, that believed in the vision and that worked hard toward it. And it came to life, because it’s something we continuously talked about since August, the end of August, our first day of practice.”

The top goal Kansas had this season, Kuhle explained, was to make the NCAA tournament. The program had continued to develop since she took over. And the changes made allowed the Jayhawks to be in a position to reach this point and celebrate it.

One of those changes was Stephen Bidne coming in as an associate head coach ahead of this season. Bidne is a former head coach at Northern Colorado and Hawai’i. Kuhle praised the effect Bidne’s had on the team in just a short time.

Another change was the makeup of the roster, with six newcomers coming in. Two of them, sophomore Lauren Clark (LSU) and graduate senior Esme Hamilton (Tennessee-Chattanooga), became consistent members of the lineup. Four others, all freshmen, helped provide depth.

The schedule was a point of emphasis, too. Kuhle wanted her team playing in more competitive tournaments. Arizona State’s PING/ASU Invitational, Arkansas’ Blessings Collegiate Invitational and UCF’s UCF Challenge were among those she mentioned from this season, and all three were no strangers to future NCAA tournament teams.

“(Kuhle) expects so much out of each of us and pushes us to our limits, and we’ve all just really bought into her vision,” graduate senior Abby Glynn, who’s from Topeka, said Thursday. “And same with coach (Bidne), coming in for his first year. I think it’s just a really good group of girls who are driven and determined and see this program going to new heights.”

Glynn noted that although she and her teammates believed it was possible at the beginning of the season that they could reach a NCAA regional, it wasn’t until they saw their progress this spring that the complete belief in that clicked in. She highlighted the Arizona State tournament, when they finished 7th in a loaded 17-team field, as the turning point. From there, as long as they continued to play well, she felt like they were off the bubble.

That strong spring is why Kuhle felt Kansas’ NCAA tournament hopes were able to survive a lackluster performance at the Big 12 Conference’s championship event in April. Earlier that month, the Jayhawks had finished as the runner-up at the Big 12’s match play tournament. Throughout the year she continued to track different rankings, teams and more, and when it came time to learn their fate she said she wasn’t worried.

Glynn’s leadership as a Kansas native, captain and fifth-year player, Kuhle said, was key over the course of the season. So, too, were the efforts of Hamilton, Clark, sophomore Johanna Ebner and sophomore Jordan Rothman. And Kuhle praised how hard the rest of the team worked as well.

“We played a lot of golf in Arizona this spring, and that’s kind of my philosophy — get to warm weather, get to the best competition — and it just happened to be Arizona this spring,” Kuhle said. “So, I think that really helped us improve the rankings and increase our confidence and continue to make these jumps that we saw this spring.”

During the time that’s left before the NCAA regional Kansas is in, which is set to be May 8-10 in Athens, Georgia, Kuhle and Glynn said they’ll focus on ball-striking and putting. Kuhle is a former assistant coach with the Georgia Bulldogs. And the regional is being held at Georgia’s home course.

Regardless of how the regional goes, though, the Jayhawks are already building momentum ahead of future seasons. Kuhle mentioned a desire to continue to try to attract the best players possible, play in tough tournaments around the country and work toward being a consistent top 25 program. Glynn said she couldn’t have had a better last year at Kansas.

“I hope this is an inspiration to people that are here and recruits coming in in the next coming years, that this program — we’re capable of doing anything we set our minds to,” Glynn said. “I think in the next couple years you’ll see us as a top 25 team year in, year out.”

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: NCAA women's golf tournament: Kansas Jayhawks reach regional