Men's golf won its first meet by 12 strokes while women's golf finished in third place.
Both the USC men's and women's golf teams opened up their fall seasons last week in a successful fashion, with the men's team winning the Whirlwind Invitational on Sept. 8-9, and the women's team finishing third at the ANNIKA Intercollegiate on Sept. 8-10.
This comes following a Spring 2025 season in which the men's team finished sixth at the NCAA Tallahassee Regional and the women's team failed to advance to the final round of the NCAA tournament after losing to Florida State.
The men's team opened its Fall 2025 season at the Whirlwind Invitational in Glendale, Arizona, with a statement win, finishing 12 strokes ahead of second-place Arkansas State University with 812 combined shots. The Trojans are no strangers to Arizona, as they hosted the Southern Dunes Invitational there last year and won it as well.
Senior Antonio Safa secured the individual title at last week's meet while setting a program record for a 54-hole finish with a 17-under-par 199 strokes. This was the first tournament win of Safa's career and the first individual title for a Trojan since 2023.
As a whole, USC dominated the par-4s and was among the top five scores with an average score of 3.79. Safa led the team with his drought-breaking win on an average of 3.50 and sophomore Jaden Dumdumaya followed in second with a 3.73 average.
The Trojans have a small roster of seven total players this year, but each carried their weight. Sophomore Jack Buchanan, a member of the 2024-25 Big Ten All-Freshman Team who started in eight tournaments for the Trojans last year, tied for second overall in the invitational with Dumdumaya and gives Head Coach Mark Hankins hope for hardware this season.
"We just want to play good golf and compete the best we can to win a championship," Hankins said of last week's tournament in an interview with the Daily Trojan.
Men's golf has three more competitions in the fall, first traveling to New Mexico for the William H. Tucker Intercollegiate from Sept. 19-20, then heading to Dallas for the Trinity Forest Invitational from Oct. 5-7, and concluding the fall season in Alpharetta, Georgia, for the Golf Club of Georgia Intercollegiate from Oct. 24-26. Following a short break, they will return to play in the Copper Cup in Laguna Niguel, CA Jan. 18-20 to begin the bulk of their season.
Women's golf started its Fall 2025 season in Minneapolis for the ANNIKA Intercollegiate, finishing third overall thanks to a standout performance from sophomore Elise Lee, who transferred to USC from Northwestern this season. She shot five-under-par to finish fourth overall and later earned Big Ten Golfer of the Week honors, her first such recognition at USC.
The invitational included the defending national champions, Northwestern, as well as various top golf programs, including Texas, Wake Forest and Oregon. Wake Forest won the invitational with a total of 856 strokes, with Oregon placing second with a total of 859 strokes, but the Trojans were not far behind at 860.
Sophomore Jasmine Koo and senior Catherine Park, two of the top amateur golfers in the world, tied for 15th at even par. Currently, Koo and Park are ranked in the top 10 of the World Amateur Golf Rankings; Koo is ranked ninth and Park is ranked 10th.
Sophomore Kylie Chong showed promise in the par-3s with an average of 2.67, but ultimately finished 23rd. This potential, combined with recently-added freshmen Chloe Kim and Sarah Hammett, makes for a group of both decorated recruits and up-and-coming players who could help the Trojans' campaign for a national championship.
Kim won the Future Champions Golf Western States Players Cup in February 2025, and Hammett is an Australian standout, currently ranked 170th in the United States Golf Association, with two wins and 13 top-10 finishes, the most recent on March 6-9, 2025, at the Women's Amateur Asia-Pacific Championship in Vietnam.