2026 MIAC Women’s Golf Championships: Defending Champs vs. The Field

The 2026 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Women’s Golf Championships open Friday, October 2, at Braemar Golf Course in Edina, bringing nine conference programs together for a 54-hole tournament that concludes Sunday, October 4, miacathletics.com reported.

Carleton enters the tournament as the defending champion after rewriting the conference record book at the 2025 championships with a record team score of 886. The Knights also set 18-hole (292) and 36-hole (590) team scoring marks last season, while individual medalist Carter Sichol established new conference records for 18 (69), 36 (138), and 54 (211) holes before capturing the NCAA Division III individual national title. Carleton placed all five of its golfers on the 2025 MIAC All-Championship Team, a feat achieved by just six teams in recorded conference history.

Braemar Golf Course Hosts Nine Teams for 54 Holes

Play at Braemar Golf Course marks the second consecutive season the MIAC Women’s Golf Championships have been held at the Edina venue, which also hosted the conference men’s tournament in 2024. Each participating program enters five players into the field, with the four best performances each day making up the official team total. The team posting the lowest cumulative score over the three-day event secures the conference’s automatic bid to the 2027 NCAA Division III Women’s Golf Championships.

Tee times on Friday, October 2, and Saturday, October 3, begin at 11:00 a.m., while Sunday’s final round is slated to start at 10:00 a.m. Teams are seeded according to their final standings from the 2025 championships, with golfers teeing off in descending order from the No. 5 position down to the No. 1 player. Carleton and St. Olaf agreed to switch wave positions on the opening day due to a campus schedule conflict. Macalester, St. Catherine, and St. Olaf start the first wave at 11:00 a.m., followed at ten-minute intervals by Gustavus, Saint Benedict, and Bethel, and concluding with Carleton, Concordia, and St. Scholastica at 12:40 p.m.

Five All-Championship Returners Compete in Edina

Five players who earned All-Championship honors return to the field this weekend. Macalester features Ava Austria, who finished fourth in 2025 after a tenth-place tie in 2024, and teammate Yangyang Gu, who tied for ninth last season. St. Catherine brings back Caylin Cantwell, who placed sixth in 2025, and Raquel Ahrens, who tied for ninth. Bethel’s Sophie Brantner, who tied for ninth in 2023, also returns after carding a collegiate-best round of 70 and tying for second at the September Showdown.

The ten lowest-scoring individuals, including ties, earn All-Championship Team recognition at the conclusion of the weekend and secure automatic qualification to the All-MIAC squad in the spring. Spectators are permitted to attend the event at Braemar Golf Course under local rules, while fans tracking the tournament remotely can access live scoring and hole-by-hole updates through Scoreboard powered by Clippd and the official MIAC championship web page.

What remains unknown is whether any program can challenge Carleton’s returning depth or if an individual golfer can approach the record-shattering scoring figures established during the 2025 championship weekend.