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, two days after top-ranked amateur Rose Zhang won the individual NCAA title. The Cardinal is 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 what is affectionately called “The Farm.”
“I was overwhelmed and kind of nervous,” Walker remembers. “Like, ‘Oh God, what have I done?’”
So naturally Walker, a former Cal Golden Bear who is in that school’s athletics hall of fame, wanted to buy something Stanford related to set the tone for this next portion of her life. But when she headed to the bookstore with Chris, she couldn’t bring herself to buy something.
“We met up after a while and he said, ‘Why don’t you have anything?’ ” Walker recalled. “And I said, ‘I’ve never owned anything red.’ UC-Davis and Cal were both blue and gold, so my whole closet was navy and gold. I was almost having an aversion to it. And Chris said, ‘Well you’re the coach now so you better get over your aversion really fast.’ ”
Walker bought a gray Stanford sweatshirt. She never took the tags off. For her, it represents that all of this is special. It can never be taken for granted how perfectly everything came together.
“I keep it because I want to remind myself how fortunate I am to be here with the path I have taken here,” Walker said.
More than nine years later, Stanford is nothing short of a juggernaut that could challenge some of the great college golf dynasties of all time. The Cardinal has reached match play of the women’s NCAA Championship every year since the format changed six years ago – they are the only team in men’s or women’s college golf that can claim the feat – and they’ve had a first-team All-American selection every season of Walker’s tenure.
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