Kansas senior Lauren Clark made history on Tuesday, becoming just the third Jayhawk in KU women’s golf history to win three consecutive individual titles.
While this one was different than either of the two before it, there’s no doubt that the red-hot nature of the team she plays for played a big role in Clark taking home the trophy.
“Every single one of us seniors want to be pro,” Clark recently told R1S1 Sports when discussing the role of her teammates in her 2025 titles. “We want to be competitive. And it’s not just something where we want to go be pro for a year or two. We want to go out and make Solheim Cups, win majors. So, it kind of hit us all at once that this is the last chance at life light. That’s what college is, that sort of safety net.”
After winning by five strokes on her home course in Orlando in early February, Clark backed that up with a win in Wisconsin a few weeks later.
On Tuesday, she started the day three strokes off the lead after back-to-back 3-under-par 69s in Rounds 1 and 2 on Monday and then fired a 6-under 66 in Round 3 to take finish the tournament at 12-under and take the title by one stroke over North Carolina’s Ing Iadpluem, who started the day at 10-under.
Clark recorded birdies on three of her first four holes to start the day and then birdied four of the first five holes on the back nine, including three in a row on 10, 11 and 12, to get to 13-under through 14 holes.
She bogeyed the par-5 16th but parred in from there to do just enough to hold on for the win.
She joins former Jayhawks Holly Reynolds, who won 4 straight individual titles during the 1992-93 season and Yupaporn Kawinpakorn, who won 3 in a row back in 2015-16, as the only Kansas women’s golfers to achieve the feat.
Clark, who also won the Florida Women’s Open in Fort Myers last summer, was responsible for one of 13 victories by 10 Jayhawks all over the globe during the summer leading up to what has been one of the most memorable seasons in program history.
“I was kind of upset, too, because I didn’t get to take the check,” joked Clark of her summer win.
She did not take home the prize money because she wanted to retain her amateur status, but noted that just getting that feeling of outdoing an entire field of pro golfers was “a great experience just trying to get back into the winner’s circle.”
The Jayhawks finished second as a team at 20-under for the tournament, behind only North Carolina’s 31-under score and 17 shots clear of Princeton in third place.
Dating back to their team win at the Red Sky Classic last September, Lindsay Kuhle’s Jayhawks have captured five first-place finishes, one second, one sixth and a seventh-place showing in the season opener.
Clark said those wins over the summer by nearly the entire roster propelled every Jayhawk to bring that kind of focus and success to KU with them for the start of the fall season.
Clearly, it has paid off.
“I think that’s what we’re seeing this year more so than any year before,” Clark said. “People really being dedicated to putting in the extra time.”
Because of that extra attention to their individual games and the way it’s paying off for the entire team, Clark said it never gets old seeing a Jayhawk on top of the leader board, no matter how competitive this group is with one another.
“We all know the hard work, because we see more behind the curtain,” she said. “So, we’re all excited for each other. Every time.”
LC does it for a third straight tourney, this time with a -12 score at the Yale Invitational West!
— Kansas Women's Golf (@KUWomensGolf) March 11, 2025
Congrats @LaurenClarkGolf 👏 pic.twitter.com/MjIRtMwYJM
The Jayhawks will return home for some more fine-tuning before heading to Phoenix March 28-30 for the ASU/PING Invitational to close out the regular season.
After that, it’s on to the Big 12 Championship (April 15-17 in Hockley, Texas), NCAA Regionals (May 5-7 at a yet-to-be-determined location) and the NCAA Championship (May 16-21 in Carlsbad, California).
Here’s a look at how the entire KU team fared individually at the 3-round, 2-day Yale Invitational West en route to this week’s second-place team finish at the PGA West Greg Norman course in La Quinta, California.
1 – Lauren Clark – 69-69-66 (204), -12
T10 – Amy DeKock – 72-72-69 (213), -3
T16 – Lily Hirst – 69-72-74 (215), -1
T16 – Ebba Nordstedt – 73-71-71 (215), -1
T24 – Lyla Louderbaugh# – 72-74-72 (218), +2
T37 – Johanna Ebner – 70-77-75 (222), +6
# - Competed as an individual
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