When Gabi Nicastro showed up on national television this summer, the broadcast said she played for Stanford.
“Not Stanford, Samford,” Nicastro said. “That’s right, Sam, not Stan.”
By the end of that week, far fewer people were getting it wrong. Entering the tournament ranked 380th in the amateur world golf rankings, the Huntsville native beat those odds and advanced to the semifinals at The Honors Course in Ooltewah, Tennessee.
“Nobody expects me to do anything, so let’s just go out and do it,” Nicastro said. “The pressure’s not on me.”
She shot 73 and 74 in stroke play to reach match play, then survived a match that tested her patience. On the 11th hole, Nicastro conceded her opponent’s 3-footer and picked up her own ball less than a foot from the cup, believing her putt had been given too. Her opponent told a rules official it had not, and Nicastro lost the hole. On the next hole, her approach hit a sprinkler head and bounced over the green.
She answered with a 6-iron to three feet to win the following hole, then sent the match to extra holes. On the first playoff hole, she hit a 7-iron from 167 yards to about five feet and made the birdie putt.
“I don’t let out emotion hardly ever,” Nicastro said. “But after I made that putt, I screamed, ‘Come on!'”
From there, she beat LSU’s Ryleigh Knaub 2 and 1 in the round of 16 and won by the same score in the quarterfinals before losing 6 and 4 to Anna Iwanaga, the tournament’s top seed and a Japan National Team member ranked 19th in the world.
Watching the final day was swing coach Craig Bocking, who has worked with Nicastro since her freshman year of high school. He left home at 2:15 a.m. to surprise her.
“Whether she’s playing one hole one or 36, I was going to try to make it work,” Bocking said.
Bocking said Nicastro’s composure sets her apart.
“Whether she’s five under, five over, you really can’t tell,” he said. “That’s a sign of some really good mental toughness.”
Nicastro credits Bocking for much of her success. “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t think I’d even be playing in college, to be honest,” she said.
Now a senior, Nicastro leads a Samford roster with four returners and four newcomers. The Bulldogs opened the season with a second-place finish at the Tulane Classic, where Nicastro finished solo fifth at even par after a bogey-free final-round 68, Grace Engel tied for eighth and freshman Beka Yang tied for 17th in her first collegiate start.
The team’s goal is a Southern Conference title.
“That’s almost better than winning as an individual, when you can celebrate with your whole team,” Nicastro said.
Individually, she wants to finish tournaments at even par or better. “I hate getting beat by a golf course, by some blades of grass,” she said.
Looking back, Nicastro said her freshman self would not have believed any of it.
“If somebody told me as a little freshman that the summer before your senior year, you’re going to make it to the semifinals of the U.S. Women’s Am,” she said, “I’m like, that’s a good one.”
Want the Crimson delivered to your inbox each week? Subscribe below!
