Women's Golf
- Title:
- Head Coach
Sammie Chergo (pronounced Chair-go) enters her second season as the head coach of the Oregon State women’s golf team after a very successful first year with the Beavers.
Chergo’s career in the orange and black couldn’t have started any better, as she led the Beavers to the team title in the first tournament of the season, the Oregon State Invitational at Trysting Tree Golf Club in Corvallis, after shooting the second-best three-round score in school history.
Oregon State continued to improve, and impress, as the season progressed with a second-place finish at the Silverado Showdown and an eighth-place showing at the Pac-12 Championship, equaling its highest finish since 1998. The Beavers finished ahead of Arizona State at the conference tournament for the first time in school history.
In Chergo’s first season, Oregon State set the school record for season scoring average (75.00) and tied the program’s three-round record with a 10-over 874 at the Westbrook Spring Invitational. Individually, Anica Yoo set Oregon State’s single-season mark (74.71) and Chelsea Saelee posted the highest average (74.83) by a junior in school history.
The team narrowly missed out on a berth to the NCAA Women’s Golf Championships, but Yoo qualified as an individual. With the help of Chergo and assistant coach Dawn Shockley, Yoo set the Oregon State three-round record with a 4-under 212 at the NCAA Regionals to become only the second Beaver golfer in history to advance to the NCAA National Championships.
Yoo finished in a tie for 45th place at NCAA Nationals in Bradenton, Fla., the highest-ever finish by an Oregon State golfer, bettering the tie for 48th place by Kathleen Takaishi at the Tulsa Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., in 1999.
Off the course, the Oregon State women’s golf team also saw success, finishing runner-up for the Beaver Cup, which is a point system designed to reward teams for their GPA’s, community service hours, attendance at mandatory and non-mandatory life skills events and SAAC meetings. Ashlee Pickerell was selected to the Pac-12 All-Academic Second Team.
Chergo launched the University of Denver’s women’s golf program and turned it into a perennial nationally-ranked team. Her teams finished in the top 50 nine times from 2002-11 including end-of-year rankings of No. 7 in 2007 and No. 8 in 2008.
Chergo’s teams won nine consecutive Sun Belt Conference titles from 2004-13 and qualified to 11 straight NCAA Tournaments from 2002-12, including three berths in the finals where they finished 16th, sixth and fifth, respectively.
During her time at the helm of Denver’s women’s golf program, Chergo’s student-athletes earned 35 National Golf Coaches Association (NGCA) All-America scholar honors, 32 all-conference honors and four were NGCA All-Americans. She was named the Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year six times and was honored as the Sun Belt Conference All-Time Coach for the 30th Anniversary in 2006.
She also served on the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Committee, the Sun Belt Conference Golf Committee and the University Athletic Affairs Committee at Denver University.
Prior to her time at Denver, Chergo was an assistant coach at the University of Colorado during the 1996-97 season.
Chergo took up golf during her freshman year at Colorado State and went on to earn three letters from 1988-91. She was selected to represent Colorado at the United State Golf Association Women’s Public Links Championships in 1996, 1997 and 1999, and won the Colorado Women’s Golf Association Mashie Championship in 1998 and 1999.
Her athletic career was distinguished beginning at Arvada West High School, outside Denver, where she earned all-state honors in softball, basketball and soccer. As a senior, she was selected the USA Today State of Colorado Female High School Athlete of the Year, the Denver Post Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year and the Colorado Sportswomen Foundation All-Around Athlete of the Year.
Chergo earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and nutrition from Colorado State in 1993 and added a Master’s of Science in management from the University of Denver in 2005.
