An unusual gift for ANWA? It is shown in its most complete group

Anne Walker tries to stop herself before it comes out – but it always does.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, the Stanford women’s golf coach has a front-row seat to one of the most, if not the most, competitive rounds in the women’s game, when his full Cardinal team plays against each other to determine the top five players in the upcoming tournament.

“I find myself saying out loud, ‘Wow,’ to some of the shots they hit,” Walker told GOLF. “Really, I’ll be standing there, and it’s coming out of my mouth, and I’m like, ‘Wow. And I’m going to catch myself, and I’m going to say, ‘Dude, you can’t be the old lady in the box saying, ‘Oh, you’ve hit it so far!’

“I don’t think so [the practice rounds] As fun, I think of them as part of the process, and it’s embedded in who we are at Stanford. Seeing these guys play golf up close all the time is great.”

That’s a good problem for a coach to have, and one that includes the powerhouse Walker built in Palo Alto. He hires top talent who buys into the Stanford process and fits the core team culture of what he’s built in the Bay Area. The Cardinal’s program stands on a few key values: love, trust, joy and, perhaps most of all, competition. It’s something Walker’s current team has embraced, and that’s why he should brace himself as he watches what may be his most talented yet competitive unit as they compete for a spot in that first week of five.

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But this week will be different for Walker. This week, that won’t be a problem. This week, on the world’s most famous golf course, she will watch as her five stars – or five numbers as she calls them – arrive at Augusta National to compete in the 2026 Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

Megha Ganne, who won the US Women’s Amateur Championship last summer, will return for her sixth ANWA title. Paula Martin Sampedro, who won the British Amateur and Ladies European Amateur last summer, will play in the third, as will Andrea Revuelta and Kelly Xu. Meja Ortengren will be making her second trip to Augusta National. Sampedro is ranked No. 2 in the Women’s Amateur Golf Rankings. Revuelta is No. 3, Ortengren No. 5, Ganne No. 6 and Xu No. 20.

“I think the unity is really unique,” Walker said of the five Cardinals heading to Augusta National. “You are a product of the people you spend a lot of time with in life. You will end up imitating their habits. You will be influenced by their behavior. We cannot help that we are only people, the society we are in. So showing up every day with your best energy and your emotional state, you automatically influence others, and without them thinking about it and being affected by it, and thinking about it and being affected by it. the continuation of development and progress just by being together.”

This stacked Cardinal team, whose WAGR rating is 7.2, has a rare liability that Walker hasn’t had in his 13 years at Stanford. All his teams are close, yes, but this team is different. Sampedro and Revuelta grew up together in Spain. Ganne and Xu played together on Junior Solheim Cup teams. Ortengren and Nora Sundberg, a sophomore on the team who will not play in ANWA, grew up together in Sweden. Bonds are everywhere, creating a cohesive team that is the definition of a collective in each regular game. It has created a level of comfort that acts as a launching pad to propel them forward, to greater heights.

It’s a team overflowing with talent. Walker describes Sampedro as “a little engine that can.” A smart and focused player, his determination to get better and passion for the game shines through in the way he attacks his daily work. Xu, a senior, is the definition of a coach’s dream. “He wants the truth,” Walker said of Xu. “You’re starting to say, I don’t know what I don’t know either, I’ll go and look for answers.”

Then there’s Ganne, whose impact on the Stanford golf program will be felt long after he’s gone. It’s a gap that’s already glaring even before he closes the book on his outstanding college career.

“He’s going to leave a big hole in our program, because he’s a great guy,” Walker said of Ganne. “She’s such a presence that not only will her departure be felt in our program, it will be felt in our men’s program. So Stanford golf as a whole, and I don’t think we’ve ever said that about any player, male or female, but that’s the development of Megha Ganne.”

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This is not the first time that Cardinal has sent five players to the famous Augusta National grounds to compete in what has quickly become a landmark in the game for emerging women’s players. Truth be told, since ANWA began, Augusta National’s weekly color has been Cardinal Red, instead of green and gold. Rose Zhang is the only Cardinal to win the event, but Stanford has been a ubiquitous presence at Augusta National since 2019, deeply woven into the fledgling event’s DNA.

And yet, the class of 2026 best embodies the beauty of the Stanford women’s program, the great importance of the fledgling event and the growing connection between the two.

“I don’t take it for granted, and I know how special it is, and I know what an honor it is to have this spotlight for all of us who play in this tournament,” said Ganne at last year’s ANWA. “I always remember that, maybe if a shot doesn’t go my way, I try to have a bigger perspective.

“I think it’s the most exciting week of the beginner golf season, men’s or women’s, in my opinion,” Ganne said. “I think everybody who plays golf knows about it. They might not know about certain tournaments, but when this happens, people listen to it. It just grabs a lot of people’s attention in the best way, and these women carry themselves very well. I’m excited to see where the tournament goes, although I don’t think it can get much better than it is now.”

Revuelta added: “Playing Augusta last year was like a dream come true for me. Everything there is so special and magical that it makes you really want to love it – it made me want to push myself this year to come here and practice and do well in this tournament. I think for a lot of young girls Augusta National is an inspiration.”

Perhaps no one understands the importance of Augusta National to growing the novice women’s game better than Xu. If you look at his Stanford history and see how the minds of Alister MacKenzie and Bobby Jones shaped the Southern California native’s golf journey. Below, it reads: First female champion at Augusta National (Inaugural Drive Chip Putt, age group 7-9)

Kelly Xu and Augusta National are responsible. Every golfer has an imaginary connection to Augusta National. It is the driver for many golf trips. But Xu’s is real and tangible. He feels deep.

“I’m really, really blessed to feel like I’m full circle, and I’m having a big part of my golf arc, the arc of my golf journey, almost like going around Augusta,” Xu told GOLF.

“I think having that experience of Drive, Chip and Putt is something that made me understand at a very young age, like this game is more than just competing with yourself. I think you can grasp it as a deeper meaning of the game. Like, being able to understand, like the history of the game, made me realize that it’s more than just a game.”

This will be Xu’s last match in ANWA. But her time at a course steeped in golf culture and with a history of excluding women and people of color made her see the bigger picture. Kelly Xu wants to win the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. But more importantly, she wants to have the power to drive younger girls, girls who have grown up like her, into the game and dream bigger – believing that they, too, can walk the streets of Augusta National and make themselves part of the team’s story.

“I want to show that it’s possible for other kids from the city to play one day in Augusta, one day you can play at this level – like you can be. And I always strive to be the type of me that my nine-year-old son would be proud of because I wasn’t like that, you know, I was practicing in the city, and I was very lucky that I was able to meet my dream in August. It’s a big goal.”

That dream and purpose is part of ANWA’s promise, a tournament that can elevate and illuminate the emerging women’s game in a unique way.

ANWA’s biggest gift is still unknown. But Anne Walker sees how big its impact can be on the road. As a young Scottish golfer with professional dreams, he never saw Augusta National as part of his path. He looked at the Kings, of course, but he didn’t see them for those holy reasons. That’s just not the case.

But the stars of his team lived a different reality. They managed to find themselves on the most famous course in the world, trying to pursue a win that would be as “career-highlighted” as any major. If you want children to dream big, you have to give them a reason to believe that there is a world where those dreams can be big and that should be the world they live in.

“These young kids, they don’t remember a time when Augusta wasn’t an option for them, and it’s the epitome of beginner golf,” Walker said. “And they get, in their mind, to see themselves hitting the same shots as Scottie [Scheffler’s] about to hit, hitting the same replay shots as Tiger’s in 16. They dream at night about that, and that just motivates them in their progress. So I don’t even know if we can wrap our arms around the influence or impact ANWA has had on women’s golf, because I think there’s a lot more to come. But I think they took the game seriously, they sneaked it up, they took the deadline of the game, they pushed it up, everyone stepped up, because now when they go to bed at night, they are dreaming of hitting the most famous shots in the history of this game. Now, we can do that too.”

This week at ANWA, Anne Walker won’t need to stop being the happy “old lady in the tee box”. He will be free to go through all the emotions with his five as they chase their dreams and a place in history on the hallowed golf courses.

When the last putt lands, win or lose, they will have left their mark and left the women’s amateur game in a better place than when they arrived. Next week at the Masters, fans will flood the merch tent for memorabilia of all shapes and sizes. But this week, the real gift comes without a price tag — and it can only be found on the course at Augusta National.