USC goes deep for record-setting win in Golfweek Red Sky Challenge debut

USC is not a team that shows up unprepared. And preparedness was even more evident over the past week at nearly 8,000 feet in the Colorado mountains.

In its team debut at the Golfweek Red Sky Challenge, USC went a head-turning 45 under par over 54 holes to finish 17 shots better than runner-up Pepperdine and take home its first title of the season. The Trojans began putting in the work at simulated altitude more than a week before showing up on site at Red Sky Golf Club in Wolcott, Colorado.

“We really attack our yardage work more aggressively than most teams,” head coach Justin Silverstein said. “We really attacked the elevation change. About 10 days ago we were doing all of our yardage testing at 7,700 feet in our indoor facilities. We did that two or three times to try to get them comfortable.”

This has become a hallmark of Silverstein’s USC squads. Silverstein is a number cruncher, often finding an edge in the data.

Combining that method with a talented squad, tee to green, and a soft, attackable golf course produced a team performance that was in NCAA record territory. Iowa State’s women own that honor after going 60 under at the Mountain View Collegiate in 2023. Stanford has twice gone 50 under.

Rain after the first round went a long way in softening up Red Sky, and a wet second round presented a significant challenge for the field. It played right into USC’s hands, however.

“Historically, when we’ve gotten a soft golf course with very little wind, we’ve done really well,” Silverstein said. “I think it’s a credit to the yardage work we do at home. I think we do as much as anybody in the country as far as pure yardage work is concerned.

“The hole locations (at Red Sky) were very difficult, but they were pretty accessible because it was soft. So I think we just did a good job hitting our numbers and our team struck it pretty well and it obviously showed with the score.”

The Golfweek Red Sky Challenge is now in its 16th year. Silverstein added it to the schedule for the first time this fall after noting that talented teams with savvy coaches were returning to Red Sky year after year. When he was pulling together his fall calendar a year ago, he thought it might be a nice change on a World Amateur Team Championship year, and one that would be relatively easy to get to from the West Coast. Silverstein is also no stranger to the course itself, having seen it in person at the start of his coaching career when he traveled here as the Arizona assistant coach.

USC went into almost unheard-of scoring territory at Red Sky, an undulating mountain layout with slick greens that requires plenty of match when it comes to calculating yardages because of its high altitude. USC’s 45-under team score is a tournament record, topping UCLA’s 32-under performance from 2018. Interestingly, USC assistant coach Bethany Wu was a member of that UCLA squad.

“I think we drive it well, I think that’s part of the reason we’re a really good team and have a pretty good chance this year,” Silverstein said, “but I think with the soft greens and the distance control is why we were able to go so deep.”

Silverstein hadn’t run the numbers immediately after carting off Red Sky hardware, but it was apparent that his team’s performance on Red Sky’s greens was a difference maker. To the team, Red Sky’s greens were similar in shape to the greens at Trump National in Los Angeles, one of the team’s home facilities. They’re the same speed as USC’s main home facility, Rolling Hills Country Club, which, Silverstein notes, “has probably the best greens in Southern California if not California if not more than that.”

After Pepperdine (which has won five times at Red Sky), LSU, Arizona and Kansas rounded out the top 5, and all finished under par. Miami was sixth at 6 over.

USC players Kylie Chong and Jasmine Koo were co-medalists after each finished at 13 under. Koo made eagle on her final hole, the par-5 18^th, to tie her teammate.

That went a long way in separating the Trojans from the field, but consider that USC didn’t even have one of its stars, Bailey Shoemaker, in the lineup. Shoemaker has been out with an injury but Silverstein is hopeful she'll be back when USC tees it up next month at the Stanford Intercollegiate.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: USC wins Golfweek Red Sky Challenge in record-setting debut