Cardinal rules

Editor's Note: This story was originally published in November 2021. Anne Walker's Stanford team would go on to capture the 2022 NCAA Championship in a 3-2 victory over Oregon, while top-ranked amateur Rose Zhang won the individual NCAA title. The Cardinal was the first No. 1 seed to win the team title in the match play era.

We all have an unworn sweater hiding somewhere in the depths of our closet. For Anne Walker, one of those still-tagged, undisturbed sweaters tells the story of how she has emerged as arguably the top coach in college golf, building the Stanford women’s program into the ultimate powerhouse.

It goes back to the summer of 2012, when Walker had unofficially accepted the job in Palo Alto, California, taking a massive leap from coaching UC-Davis to the job she dreamed of one day having. Overcome with excitement, she drove down to the Stanford campus with her soon-to-be husband, Chris, on the kind of idyllic day that breathes life into the stunning Richardsonian Romanesque architecture found on ...