YSPILANTI, MI. – It was far from a beautiful day at Eagle Crest Golf Club to begin the 2025 NAIA Women's Golf Championship, but the No.1-ranked UBC Thunderbirds battled rain and wind blowing off of Ford Lake to hold a four-stroke lead after the first round of the event.
The T-Birds (+9) were given brutally early tee times, starting at 4:30 a.m. (PT) despite being the top-ranked team in the tournament and getting only one day to adjust to the Eastern time zone. Nonetheless, the 'Birds pulled ahead of the other early groups in the field soon after making the turn and finished the day four strokes ahead of No.8-ranked Marian (IN) (+13) in second and nine ahead of defending NAIA Champion and No.2-ranked Keiser University (+18) in third.
Jessica Ng (69, -3) was UBC's standout on Tuesday, sitting alone in second place on the individual leaderboard and six strokes ahead of any of her teammates.
Una Chou and
Grace Bell (75, +3) tied for second on the team and sit in ninth in the tournament.
Bo Brown rounded out the T-Birds' top-four on the day by carding a 78 (+6) to keep her just inside the top-40 of the 155-player field.
The blue and gold now get a relative sleep-in on Wednesday, as their block of tee times begins at 9:30 a.m. (PT).
Following the second round, the field will be cut from 30 to the top 15 teams for the final two rounds of the event on Thursday and Friday.
The live leaderboard can be found
here.
A live stream from two different holes is available
here.
