July 7, 2015
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Consistency on the course and in the classroom — it’s been the cornerstone of the University of Notre Dame women’s golf program and it continued again in 2014-15.
For the fourth consecutive year, senior captain Ashley Armstrong (Flossmoor, Ill./Homewood-Flossmoor) earned a spot on the Women’s Golf Coaches Association (WGCA) All-America Scholar Team, while junior Talia Campbell (Dallas, Texas/Ursuline Academy) made the squad for the second year in a row, the WGCA announced Monday night.
The Fighting Irish duo are among 758 women’s collegiate golfers across all three NCAA divisions to receive the prestigious honor, which requires student-athletes maintain a minimum 3.50 cumulative grade-point average and play in at least half their team’s competitive rounds.
Armstrong is the third Notre Dame golfer to be a four-time WGCA All-America Scholar, joining Katie Conway and So-Hyun Park, who both pulled off that feat from 2008-11. Meanwhile, Campbell is the 11th Fighting Irish golfer to earn two WGCA All-America Scholar awards.
It’s the second time in as many weeks Armstrong and Campbell have collected significant academic honors. On June 30, the pair joined teammates Jordan Ferreira (University Place, Wash./Bellarmine Prep) and Kelli Oride (Lihue, Hawaii/Lihue) on the 2015 All-Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Academic Women’s Golf Team.
Armstrong graduated from Notre Dame’s College of Engineering in May with her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a sharp 3.90 cumulative GPA. The two-time Fighting Irish captain also was a three-time Capital One Academic All-America selection (just the 11th three-time honoree in Notre Dame athletics history and first women’s golfer), and received both an ACC Postgraduate Scholarship and Notre Dame’s Byron V. Kanaley Award (the highest honor awarded to a graduating Fighting Irish student-athlete) in 2015, becoming the first women’s golfer to receive the ACC scholarship and the second Kanaley award winner in program history.
On the course, Armstrong completed her Notre Dame career with a 74.98 stroke average, the third-lowest mark in school history. She also carded a career-low 74.10 season stroke average (fourth in the school’s record book and 13th in the ACC) in 2014-15 and posted four top-10 finishes while tying for team-high honors with seven rounds under par, including a team-best four rounds in the 60s.
Campbell (Dallas, Texas/Ursuline Academy) is pursuing her bachelor’s degree in finance through Notre Dame’s top-ranked Mendoza College of Business, where she maintains a 3.55 cumulative GPA. She also will carry a 74.67 career stroke average into her final college season, the second-best career ratio in school history.
This past season, Campbell recorded a 73.43 stroke average, the second-lowest mark in program history and ninth-best in the ACC, leading the Texan to wind up 55th in the year-end Golfstat rankings. In addition, Campbell was one of just three ACC golfers to combine all-conference, All-ACC Academic Team and WGCA All-America Scholar honors in 2014-15, joining Duke’s Leona Maguire and Miami’s Daniella Darquea in that elite company.
Campbell and Ferreira are among three starters (along with sophomore-to-be Kari Bellville) and five veterans returning next season. They will be joined by a strong incoming freshman class that includes two of the top 30 finishers at last month’s Rolex/American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) Tournament of Champions — Maddie Rose Hamilton (finished fifth, now ranked No. 17 in Class of 2015 by Golfweek) and Emma Albrecht (placed 27th, rising to No. 38 nationally among incoming freshmen, according to Golfweek) — as well as Isabella DiLisio, who was a member of the 2015 USA Junior World Cup Team that finished fourth at that international competition last month in Japan (DiLisio is currently ranked 27th in the Class of 2015 by Golfweek).
Notre Dame is one of two schools in the country (along with Georgia) with three incoming freshmen ranked among the top 50 in the Golfweek Power 50 index.
For more information on the Notre Dame women’s golf program, sign up to follow the Fighting Irish women’s golf Twitter pages (@NDsidMasters or @NDwomensGolf) or register for the Irish ALERT text-messaging system through the “Fan Center” pulldown menu on the front page at UND.com.
— Chris Masters, Athletics Communications Associate Director