It didn’t take long for freshman golfer Mariko Tumangan to make her presence felt on the Stanford women’s golf team. On Oct. 28, barely a month into her college career, she shot a women’s course record 63 on the Stanford course. It was two shots better than the previous record, which had been set six years earlier by Duke golfer Liz Janangelo—now a professional on the LPGA Futures Tour.

Led by Tumangan, the lone freshman, and junior captains Sally Watson and Kristina Wong, the team should be stronger than it was last year. In the fall, the Cardinal took third in the Rainbow Wahine Invitational and finished second in the Cougar Cup. Watson won the individual title at the Cougar Cup, sinking a 40-foot putt on the last hole to clinch first place. However, the team did not perform well in its other two fall tournaments.

But although the team seems to have improved, the Cardinal’s results in major tournaments may not fully reflect that improvement. The Pac-12 Conference is perhaps the most competitive in the country, with three teams ranked in the top 10 in the nation and eight in the top 20—Stanford is currently No. 42.  Among those top teams are No. 4 USC and top-ranked, defending national champion UCLA, which won the Rainbow Wahine Invitational by 20 shots and is led by two of the top six players in the nation.

“We’re in a conference that I would say is absolutely the strongest in the country. The SEC is sometimes there to rival us, but [the Pac-12 is] a tough conference,” said head coach Caroline O’Connor. “We have to be on our games every single day, every single event when we get out there … We haven’t been to an event yet where we haven’t seen a bunch of top-10 programs.”

Last season, the Cardinal tied for fifth in the Pac-10 Championships and finished seventh in the NCAA Regional Tournament before stumbling in the national tournament.

“There were flashes of brilliance—we were tied for the lead after one round of the Pac-10 Championship, and I think at the time there were six teams ranked in the top 10, not including Stanford,” O’Connor said. “We went in, and we shot six under in the first round, and we were leading, and we were I think two or three strokes back going into the final round and didn’t play great in the final round of the conference championship. [We] sort of played OK to get out of regionals, finishing seventh … and then just didn’t play great at nationals.”

“I think that we learned a lot,” she continued. “Now we’ll have more experience—we’ll know what it feels like again to be there, and I think that those lessons will serve us well come this spring.”

Last year marked the Cardinal’s second straight trip to nationals after a two-year hiatus. Prior to that period, the team had made the national championship for 12 straight years.

In preparation for their first tournament, the Arizona Wildcat Challenge in early February, team members have been playing qualifying rounds to simulate the pressure of competitive golf and to determine the order in which members of the team will be seeded.

Five players will represent Stanford in the tournament, and a sixth player will play individually. Sophomore Marissa Mar, Watson and O’Connor agreed that this type of competitive practice is important, especially since the team has not played in a tournament since early November.

“I think qualifying definitely brings a sense that every shot counts, every mental process counts toward your shot as well. Making the most of each shot is a main goal for preparing ourselves mentally for the tournament,” Mar said.

Following the Wildcat Challenge, the Cardinal will play at home in the Peg Barnard Invitational before heading to Los Angeles to play in the Bruin Wave Invitational on March 5 and 6. The Pac-12 Championship begins on April 27, and NCAA regional play begins on May 10. If the Cardinal finishes in the top 8 in the 24-team regional tournament, it will advance to the 24-team national tournament in Tennessee in late May.

Watson said that the team has difficulty under pressure. To remedy this weakness, players work with a golf psychologist and with the coaches and imitate pressurized situations in practice.

“I think everyone has the skill and the ability to compete with the best in the country, it’s just a matter of building up our confidence as a team, building up our confidence as individuals and going to tournaments with the right attitude to allow ourselves to perform,” she said.

O’Connor was optimistic that the team could capitalize this year on what she believes characterized as an ample helping of potential.

“We’ve got some really, really talented players,” she said. “[Sally Watson has] had a win this year. Kristina [Wong] finished off the fall with, I think, a fourth-place finish down in Hawaii. Kristina had a run last year where, for six months, she didn’t finish out of the top seven, so if we can get those two playing to where we know they can play and where they have played in addition to [getting] Mariko Tumangan, our freshman, playing where we know she should be playing then I think that we’re competing with all of those schools.

“There’s not a doubt in my mind.”