It’s hard to believe now, given what Hannah Wood has accomplished in golf in the last couple of years, but the 20-year-old from Centennial never won a girls state high school title in Colorado. She placed third as both a sophomore and junior at Arapahoe High School, then lost in a playoff as a senior.
But since she wrapped up her high school career in May 2014, suffice it to say Wood has been on a nice long run of success. She won the 2014 CWGA Stroke Play championship, claimed an individual title at a college tournament a year ago, led the University of Oklahoma in scoring average as a freshman and made the All-Big 12 Conference team, and advanced to match play at the U.S. Women’s Amateur last summer.
Looking back on it now, that victory in the CWGA Stroke Play two years ago seems to have provided just the spark Wood needed. And she apparently sensed it at the time.
“I wanted to do something big,” Wood said after that victory. “I wanted to do something for myself to build some confidence going into college. Now I feel prepared.”
And nowadays, 20 months later, Wood is becoming one of the better women’s college golfers in the nation. As of this week, the OU sophomore stands 10th in the NCAA women’s Division I ranks in season-long scoring average, with a 71.6 norm.
Moreover, she’s become a model of consistency. The former Hale Irwin Elite Player hasn’t yet finished outside the top 20 in a tournament this season, going 6-for-6. And on Sunday she posted her fifth top-11 showing of the season, placing seventh at the Clover Cup event she won in 2015.
In fact, since going to Oklahoma, the two-time CJGA Tournament of Champions winner has finished in the top 20 in 12 of her first 16 college tournaments.
This season, Wood has shot at or under par in 12 of her 17 tournament rounds. It’s little wonder why she’s a consensus top-50 women’s college golfer in the country, with Golfstat ranking her 24th and Golfweek 41st. In addition, she’s currently 70th in the women’s World Amateur Golf Rankings.
And, if she can continue her strong play over the next two months or so, she may very well take ownership of the best season-long stroke average in University of Oklahoma women’s golf history.
That record currently belongs to Jao-Javanil Chirapat, who posted a 72.26 norm in 2012-13. With somewhere between three and five tournaments remaining in the season, Wood is more than half of a stroke ahead of that pace.
And, mind you, Wood is less than halfway through her college career.
