SORRENTO, FLA.--You couldn't get rid of the smile on the face of Arizona State senior Azahara Munoz as she walked around the practice range at Red Tail GC, preparing to play for the top-ranked Sun Devils in the UCF Challenge. While having only missed two tournaments this spring following surgery Jan. 22 to remove a cyst from her right wrist, the defending NCAA individual champion hadn't played in an event since the end of October, the longest stretch of time off from the game since she began playing in earnest.

"Originally, they thought it was only going to be four weeks, but it turned into six," Munoz said, the impatience in her voice rather obvious. "It's my last semester. I just don't want to miss anything."

The wrist remains sore, and Munoz continues to undergo ultrasound treatments to help regain mobility that has been inhibited by scar tissue. Still, except for the ice bag she carried after the round you wouldn't have noticed anything was amiss Sunday, the 21-year-old Spaniard posting an even-par 72 to place T-23 after 18 holes, six strokes back of leader Jessica Yadloczky of Florida. (In the team competition, UCLA's six-under 282 gave the Bruins a two-stroke lead over ASU through Day 1.)

"The last two weeks she's really made a lot of improvement," said ASU coach Melissa Luellen, Munoz' practice regime finally including full swings within the last 10 days. "She knows she can play through some of the pain. But it broke her heart not to travel to Mexico [for last week's Arizona Wildcat Invitational]."

It wasn't just her own return that Munoz was happy about. Accompanying the Sun Devils to Florida was Missy Farr-Kaye, the team's associate head coach who was traveling to her first tournament of the 2008-09 season after undergoing treatment last fall for a recurrence of breast cancer.

"The hair is coming back, although I've still got to wear a cap," Farr-Kaye said with a laugh, two weeks removed from having finished seven weeks of radiation therapy.

Farr-Kaye had first been diagnosed with cancer in 1998. Her sister, former ASU All-American Heather Farr, died from the disease in 1993.

"I'm not 100 percent just yet, but I'm feeling much better," Farr-Kaye said. "I'm very optimistic about the future."

It's going to be a long shot for Duke's Amanda Blumenherst, the reigning NCAA women's college golfer of the year and the U.S. Women's Amateur champion, to actually win the Sullivan Award, given to the top amateur athlete of the previous year. This is particularly the case given that 2008 was an Olympic year and other contenders include Nastia Liukin, the gymnastics All-Around gold medalist, and the USA men's 4x100 swimming relay team, which included some guy named Michael Phelps.

That said the Blue Devil senior has to be happy being named one of 10 semifinalists today for the prestigious award. Only twice has a golfer won the honor: Bobby Jones in 1930 and Lawson Little Jr. in 1935. Most recently USC's Jamie Lovemark was named a semifinalist for 2007.

Meanwhile, the general public can participate in the vote--fan voting counts for one-third of the overall voting--by going to USAToday.com (for the live link, click here).

Other semifinalists: Cynthia Barboza (Volleyball), Dara Torres (Swimming), Jonathan Horton (Gymnastics), Shawn Johnson (Gymnastics), Lopez Family (Taekwondo), USA Men's 4x100 Relay Team (Swimming), Erin Popovich (Paralympics Swimming), Tyler Hansbrough (Basketball), Sam Bradford (Football), Nastia Liukin (Gymnastics), Gerald "Buster" Posey (Baseball).

In the Feb. 23 issue of Golf World, my Amateur Spotlight story explored how Duke's streak of consecutive ACC women's titles might be coming to an end this April at 13. As I wrote in the magazine, it's not so much that the Blue Devils have fallen on hard times--although if the back problems that forced Alison Whitaker to sit out the last two rounds of this week's Central District Invitational persist, leaving Duke with just four healthy golfers, there will be definite issues in Durham, N.C.

No, it's the improved play of the rest of the conference's programs, most notably Virginia, Wake Forest and North Carolina, that suggests Duke's superiority is no longer a complex for the rest of the league. All three schools are ranked in the top 13 in the Golf World/NGCA coaches' poll and all have the depth to at least challenge, if not win, the ACC crown.

In talking to the coaches at each school, they all were quick to point out that Duke's benchmark has been what has pushed their programs to improve. "And a lot of those times in those years [Duke] was No. 1 in the country," said Wake Forest women's coach Dianne Dailey. "That's a pretty high standard. But we always kept trying to get there."

I'm particularly intrigued with the story out of Winston-Salem, N.C., and the Demon Deacons. At the start of the fall season, it looked like Wake Forest was anything but a serious national contender, finishing ninth at the NCAA Preview and 14th at the Mason Rudolph Championship. "We were not managing the course very well," Dailey, in her 21st year coaching at Wake, admitted. "We were making a lot of mental mistakes, a lot of bad decisions on the golf course."

After the Mason Rudolph, Dailey held a team meeting to address the issue, a discussion that became a turning point in the season; afterward the Demon Deacons proceeded to win the Lady Tar Heel Invitational and Landfall Tradition to close out the fall. They then started the spring by flying across the country and posting an impressive second-place finish at the Northrup Grumman Regionals Challenge in California.

Five Wake players--seniors Nannette Hill and Jean Chua, junior Dolores White, sophomore Natalie Sheary and freshman Cheyenne Woods--have had top-10 finishes in 2008-09, with Allie Bodemann also pushing for a starting spot.

According to Dailey, practices have been fun but more competitive than in recent years. A key reason for that increased energy has been the addition of assistant coach Robin Walton. You could make the argument that Walton, an assistant at Florida from 2000 to 2008, was the biggest off-season recruit Dailey landed.

"She's added a lot of new ideas [to practices]," Dailey said of Walton. "She has 20 years of playing experience and eight years of coaching experience. She's by far the most experienced assistant that I've had. She brings a lot of enthusiasm and imagination and creativity to practices. She's been a very important addition to our team."

Best of all is listening to Dailey herself. The Hall of Fame coach sounds very excited by her group, and by the prospect of coaching in the future. While some of her colleagues have decided to get out of the field, citing the longer hours necessarily on the recruiting trail, Dailey says she has never been more committed.

"I think I'm going to be doing this for a while," Dailey said. "I don't have any plans to leave any time soon. You know you work hard to build a team and a foundation that you can just keep building on. And I think we're at that point now, where we can just add one or two students every year that really want to be here, really want to work. It's taken me a while to get to that point . . . I'm a little bit of a slow learner here. But it's been fun."

Just a couple early observations following today's finish of the Northrup Grumman Regional Challenge, where Arizona State beat Wake Forest by 18 shots at Palos Verdes (Calif.) GC, with UCLA finishing 19 strokes back and USC coming in 21 behind (for complete results, click here):

1.) The spring ASU roster is significantly better than the fall roster. 
It's amazing to think that when the Sun Devils lost arguably the best player in college golf through the fall, Anna Nordqvist. Still, without NCAA individual champion Azahara Munoz in the starting five (recovering from having a cyst removed from her wrist), the Sun Devils dusted a field that included 11 top-25 teams in the final fall Golf World/NGCA coaches' poll and five of the top-10.

J-frosh Carlota Ciganda had an impressive debut, finishing T-2 and looking as if she's having few problems adjusting to school, while transfer Jaclyn Sweeney also pulled down a top-20 finish. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Juliana Murcia (right) shows up with a standout performance, shooting one-over 214 to claim medalist honors by eight strokes. (Her total was almost 25 strokes better than the average 54-hole score for the tournament.)

"It's pretty amazing that we were able to come out on top and win by such a large margin without Aza and Anna," ASU coach Melissa Luellen said afterward. "It just shows that we've got some new depth and we're a new team."

2.) UCLA is still pretty darn good.
When my "Fab Five" comes out later this week, I'm still going to have the Bruins No. 1. It's no disrespect to ASU, but if you look at UCLA's performance you see that the team had five players finish in the top 13, including two in the top-seven (Ryann O'Toole and Tiffany Joh). Only problem was that O'Toole was playing as an individual, and Sydnee Michaels, a standout player in the fall, struggled to a T-34 showing. Swap out O'Toole and Michaels, and UCLA gets 11 strokes back. (Yeah, I know ... the Bruins still lose then by eight shots, but they lose because Murcia played out of her mind.)

3.) There's plenty of time to debate this.
As of now, ASU and UCLA are 1-1 head-to-head. Better yet, they will be in the same field in four more tournaments this spring before NCAA regionals.

Game on!!

Photo: Courtesy of Arizona State Sports Information

When the Pepperdine women, ranked 10th in the final Golf World/NGCA fall coaches' poll, tee it up next Monday out at Palos Verdes GC for the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge, they'll play their spring opener without the newest member of their squad, Ayaka Kaneko. The 19-year-old from Honolulu, the 2007 U.S. Girls' Junior runner-up, has been nursing a sore left wrist since enrolling at the Malibu school last month. An MRI recently revealed Kaneko has a cyst, although doctors told her Wednesday the pain was unrelated, the result instead of a strain in the wrist.

"The good news is she's not going to need surgery," said Pepperdine women's coach Laurie Gibbs. "She just needs rest and to go through some treatment." Among the remedies doctors are using is acupuncture.

Initially Kaneko's problem sounded very similar to the one Arizona State's Azahara Munoz had recently suffered; the NCAA champion had a cyst removed from her wrist that had been causing her discomfort, which will cause her to miss the Northrop Grumman tournament as well.

Pepperdine's medical woes haven't been limited to Kaneko. Freshman Lisa McCloskey, who set the NCAA 54-hole scoring record last October at the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown, suffered an appendicitis while with her family in Abu Dhabi during the winter vacation. The illness required that she have emergency surgery there just after Christmas. McCloskey has made a full recovery, but didn't begin to practicing until the past few weeks. Finally cleared two days ago by doctors to compete in the spring opener, McCloskey played her first full round of golf since the surgery on Wednesday.

Said Gibbs, with a sarcastic laugh: "I haven't been to the trainer this much in 15 years."

Seems hard to believe an amateur would pass up an invitation to a major championship, but a year after Stacy Lewis turned down a spot in the LPGA's Kraft Nabisco Championship, Amanda Blumenherst has done the same.

Like for Lewis in 2008, there is a reasonable explanation to Blumenherst's decision: The Duke senior intends to turn professional after the school year ends in May and wants to hold on to all the sponsor's exemptions she's allowed to take as a non-member of the LPGA Tour--six--until then. That way, Blumenherst has the best shot at possibly earning an LPGA card for 2010 without having to go to Q-School, hoping that she can make $137,542 (or the equivalent of No. 80 on last year's LPGA money list) in those six 2009 starts.

"Although very disappointed that Amanda will not be back at Mission Hills this year, we understand her decision and wish her the best," said Kraft Nabisco tournament director Gabe Codding.

Only four amateurs are now set to play in the event--Azahara Munoz, Tiffany Joh, Candace Schepperle and Alexis Thompson. In previous years as many as six or seven amateurs have competed in the tournament. Codding, however, said there has been no determination on whether it might invite any other amateurs to play in this year's event.

Photo credit: Duke photography

Not much of a surprise to see that Duke's Amanda Blumenherst, Arizona State's Azahara Munoz and UCLA's Tiffany Joh received sponsor's exemptions today into the LPGA's Kraft Nabsico Championship. They are, after all, the reigning U.S. Women's Amateur, NCAA and U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links champions, respectively. It's the fourth college player that will be heading to Mission Hills CC in Palm Springs, Calif., the first week of April that was somewhat unexpected: Auburn's Candace Schepperle.

Back-to-back victories at the Dixie Amateur and the Harder Hall Invitational to start the new year didn't hurt the 20-year-old from Birmingham, Ala. (She didn't post a score over par in the two event's eight rounds). That came on top of a solid fall season for the Tigers, where Schepperle had three top-five finishes in four starts and a 71.83 stroke average.

A fifth amateur, U.S. Girls' Junior champion Alexis Thompson, also received an exemption.

Blumenherst finished in 30th place at the tournament a year ago; the rest of the amateurs will be making their Kraft Nabisco debuts. Interestingly, amateurs have posted top-10 finishes in the tournament five times since 2000.

There are several intriguing storylines to keep an eye on as the spring season beckons--only 12 days until tournament action finally begins again--but there's one in particular that I'm curious to see how it plays out:

How will the Oklahoma State women's team fare?

Not many schools experienced a more tumultuous fall than the Cowgirls, who had their head coach (Laura Matthews) abruptly resign in October and an All-American caliber player (Jaclyn Sweeney) transfer in December. Still, they finished the first half of the 2008-09 campaign ranked fourth in the Golf World/NGCA coaches' poll. Short on players--only five women appear on the current roster--OSU is long on talent with Swedish standouts Pernilla Lindberg (71.58 average) and Caroline Hedwall (71.17) leading the charge and making the school an attractive "dark horse" challenger to the current Big Three (UCLA, Arizona State and USC) in the women's game.

"I don't think a lot of changes need to be made," says Annie Young, the 26-year-old former OSU All-American hired last month to replace Matthews, about preparing for the spring. "They did a heck of a job this fall. They know how to play golf. They're so talented that if I just let them go play, they're going to be fine."

Can the same be said, though, for Young? The Highland, Utah, native, who spent her time since graduating in 2005 trying to make it on the LPGA Tour, has never been a coach of any sort at any level. Considering she's not that far removed from being an elite amateur player herself (under her maiden name, Thurman, she won the 2002 U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links title and securing the winning point for the victorious 2004 U.S. Curtis Cup team), she'll likely be able to relate to her new charges. That said, being a teammate and being a coach are two very different things.

As tough as it might have been for Young to take over the program mid-season, the timing actually might have worked to her advantage. Hired in early December, she met with her players for a get-acquainted dinner just before they took finals. As they finished their course work and went home for the winter break, Young was able to hit the recruiting trail in hopes of finding a few more bodies for the 2009-10 season (three of the five Cowgirls are seniors, including Lindberg). Top high schoolers Jane Rah, Sue Kim and Kimberly Kim had committed verbally to the program for next fall but after Matthews left, only Rah signed a letter of intent in November. (Sources say Kimberly Kim is still considering going to OSU; Young wouldn't comment, other than saying "We'll be able to put a good group of girls together.")

Suffice it to say, however, Young has been anxious to finally get to work with her current team, the defending Big 12 Conference champions, as school resumed last week. If there's a concern on her part, it's whether having such a thin roster might result in complacency while working back in Stillwater. To that end, she intends to carry a bag and play with her team during practice rounds. "I think it's a big factor in getting them to be competitive out there," Young says. "It's easier to understand what they're going through if you're playing the game along with them."

Young believes she'll be able to help her players most with the mental aspect of the game. "I learned a lot out on tour at what it takes to be successful," Young says. "Now, I wasn't always able to carry that over to my own game, but I got a lot of good ideas." Also working in her favor is the fact that she has veteran assistants Alan Bratton and Donnie Darr to lean on, not only as she learns the logistics of being an NCAA coach but also in getting to know her players better.

So what, then, should people expect from the Oklahoma State women?

"I think it would be bad for me to say that I don't expect to be up there for the conference championship and be in the hunt when it comes to nationals," Young says. "We might only go five deep, but any of those five can fire a pretty low number at any time. You don't know what the outcome will be, but we definitely should be in the mix with the talent we have."

One of the worst kept secrets during the winter break finally became official Wednesday afternoon: former Oklahoma State standout Jaclyn Sweeney has transferred to Arizona State.

"I call her my 2008 Christmas present," said Sun Devils women's coach Melissa Luellen. "It was such a fast deal that transpired for her to transfer from Oklahoma State."

Just how fast? After being released from her scholarship at Oklahoma State last month, Sweeney (right) e-mailed Luellen on Dec. 11 to inquire whether there might be a spot for her on the Sun Devils' roster, what with ASU All-American Anna Nordqvist having decided to turn pro and leave school early. Luellen, who was returning home from the National Golf Coaches Association's annual convention in Las Vegas, got the e-mail en route to the airport. Once getting a copy of the release, Luellen talked to Sweeney on the phone Dec. 12 and set up an official visit on campus for Dec. 16.

"I think she thought I wouldn't want her to come. I don't know why," Luellen said. "Obviously with the loss of Anna, just an exceptional player, that hurt us a lot. Then to have the opportunity to get such a great player [in Sweeney], to have that opportunity for her to join the team in January was just beyond belief."

Once the 19-year-old Andover, Mass., native took her official visit--after also taking an official visit at Georgia--Sweeney was set on going to ASU, the No. 2 ranked school in the final fall Golf World/NGCA coaches' poll. Still, there was a hitch: She needed to take a three-credit-hour online sociology course in order to have the proper credits to transfer. Cramming all her studies into less than a week, she passing the class, allowing her to be officially admitted to Arizona State Jan. 14.

"I guess you can say the winter has been a little crazy," Sweeney told Golf World Wednesday night when reached by cell phone. "I'm just so excited to have a fresh start."

There's no questioning Sweeney's talent: the former Leadbetter Academy student won the Big 12 Conference title last April, one of five top-10 finishes in eight spring starts (she enrolled at OSU in January 2008 after playing in LPGA Q school in December 2007). Her results also earned her the Big 12 newcomer-of-the-year award.

Infamously, though, she closed out the 2007-08 campaign by breaking her left index finger during the second round of the NCAA Championship last May when she slammed a club in her bag out of frustration, causing the Cowgirls to play with only four players the rest of the championship.

This past fall, Sweeney played in just one tournament for Oklahoma State (T-48 at the Mason Rudolph in September) after being given the OK to participate again in LPGA Q school, where she reached the finals but missed the 72-hole cut.

Sweeney told Golf World she has no intention of trying Q school again in 2009. "I'm fully committed to college golf," she said. "I'm not going to go back to Q school this year. I want to have a college experience and have a collegiate resume going into professional golf.

"You're not going to see me at ASU for just four months," she continued. "You're going to see me there for a minimum of a year and a half. I've already put the ASU grips on my wedges and on my putter. I really want to commit to this school, and I'm really excited to be part of such a great team. I know people are probably going to comment on it. You can say what you want to say about my qualifying experience, but I'm very happy I did it. I have no regrets in going."

As I wrote in this week's issue of Golf World, despite losing Nordqvist, the addition of Sweeney, along with the highly anticipated arrival of January freshmen Carlota Ciganda and Giulia Molinaro (a fellow Leadbetter Academy pupil) provide Luellen with more depth than she has had on her roster at any times since she started coaching at ASU in 2002.

"It's going to be very competitive," Luellen said. "I've told them, 'We're going back to qualifying. It's going to be nothing but better for your and your game ... to keep you on your toes. This is what you signed up for, come to ASU to be on a highly competitive team. And we're finally able to provide that for you.' "

A difficult fall on the course--one win at the Hooters Collegiate Match Play and no finish in three stroke-play tournaments better than a fifth place--has turned into an even more stressful winter off it for coach Dan Brooks and the Duke women with news today that freshman Mina Harigae, the 2007 U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links champion, has left school to concentrate on her game with an eye on playing professionally later in 2009. (Busy week out of Durham, N.C., huh?!?)

"I enjoyed playing college golf and Duke is a wonderful place, but I have decided I need to focus more on golf and my goal of turning professional," said Harigae in a press release. "I have not decided when I will turn professional but I plan on doing so by the end of the summer."

The 19-year-old from Monterey, Calif., a member of the 2008 U.S. Curtis Cup team, played in three fall events for the Blue Devils, posting a T-14 and T-5 finish in two stroke-play tournaments and having a team-best 71.13 stroke average. Her play was good enough to earn a spot on Golf World's All-Freshmen team for the fall semester.

Harigae's departure leaves only five players on the active roster at Duke, which finished the fall ranked No. 7 in the Golf World/NGCA coaches' poll. Of the remaining players, only seniors Amanda Blumenherst (72.72) and Jennie Lee (72.0) finished the first half of the season with stroke averages lower than 75.45.

Duke opens the spring season at the Central District Invitational, Feb. 16-18.