Marta López Echevarría Punches Individual Ticket to 2025 NCAA Regionals
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Marta López Echevarría continues her college career after being selected to the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship Lexington Regional field, it was announced by Golf Channel on Wednesday.
While the 41st-ranked University of Kentucky women’s golf team did not make a regional site, team captain López Echevarría was one of 36 individuals (including automatic qualifiers) not on a participating team selected for an individual position.
The senior from Roquetas de Mar, Spain, and the rest of the Lexington Regional field will play at Champion Trace at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky, on May 5-7. Champion Trace was the home of the ISCO Championship on the PGA Tour. The course will play as a par 72 at 6,291 yards.
“I’m very excited I get to play at home one last time, with my home crowd and my family coming all the way from Spain,” López Echevarría said. “Champion Trace is a course we have practiced a lot this season and it’s nice I get to feel right at home during such an exciting week.”
Seventy-two teams (including automatic qualifiers) and 36 individuals (including automatic qualifiers) not on those teams for participation at one of the six regional sites were selected to a regional Wednesday.
Each regional site, which also includes Charlottesville Regional, Columbus Regional, Gold Canyon Regional, Lubbock Regional and Norman Regional, is comprised of 12 teams and six individuals (not on one of the selected teams).
Five teams and the leading individual not on an advancing team from each regional site will advance to the final site at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California, on May 16-21.
Each regional site will consist of 54 holes of stroke play, played across Monday, Tuesday at Wednesday.
López Echevarría is currently the No. 146 player in NCAA DI, boasting a 72.7 stroke average and a 72.0 adjusted stroke average through 24 rounds and eight events in 2024-25. Twenty-two of her 24 rounds contributed to the team total this season, and nine of her 24 rounds were par-or-better. That includes her season-best 67 (-3) in the final round of the Southeastern Conference Championship in Tampa, Florida, earlier this month.
The Wildcat had two finishes inside the top 10 and three finishes inside the top 20 this season, the best finishes of her college career. Ironically, she began her season at the Bettie Lou Evans Invitational at Champion Trace. There, she came up with a career-best fifth place on a 217 (+1). Two tournaments later at the Charles Schwab, she tied for sixth place on a career-best 213 (E).
At the Ruth’s Chris Tar Heel Invitational – one of the most decorated fields in college golf – she landed T19 with a 217 (+7).
The team captain of the Wildcats in 2024-25, she is having a monster turnaround season. She shed two full strokes off her scoring average from just a season ago. In fact, a testament to her continual improvement, she has improved her scoring average each season at UK.
Returning to the site of her fifth place, 217 (+1) showing earlier this season at the Bettie Lou Evans Invitational, López Echevarría strung together rounds of 75, 72 and 70 at Champion Trace.
Live scoring throughout the event can be found here.
For the latest on the Kentucky women’s golf team, follow the team on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.
