BYU women’s golf just gave us the kind of July note that disappears if everybody is staring only at football countdown posts.
Do not let it disappear.
BYU announced that five current Cougars, Whitney Banz, Berlin Long, Aadyn Long, Ava Schroeder and Nya Palmer, will play in the 120th Utah Women’s State Amateur Championship beginning Monday at Oakridge Country Club. Recent BYU graduate Sunbin Seo is in the field too.
That is not just a schedule note. It is six BYU-connected scorecards in one of the better local amateur tests of the summer, with enough history behind it to make the week worth tracking.
What BYU’s official release says
BYU’s story gives the short version: Banz, Berlin Long, Aadyn Long, Schroeder and Palmer are set for Monday’s stroke-play qualifying round. Seo, who finished her BYU career this past season, is also competing.
The tee-time sheet gives BYU fans a clean watch list: Palmer at 7:30 a.m. MT, Berlin Long at 7:48, Banz at 8:06, Aadyn Long at 8:24, Seo at 8:42 and Schroeder at 9:18.
The program history is the better part. BYU says Cougar golfers and alumni have combined to win the event 20 times since 1980, with Lila Galeai the most recent BYU-connected champion in 2021. That number should make casual fans sit up a little. Women’s golf has a real local footprint, even if it rarely gets the oxygen football and men’s basketball take for granted.
There is also recent form in this event. Banz earned medalist honors in 2025 stroke-play qualifying with a 4-under 68 before losing in the Round of 16. Berlin Long and Aadyn Long both reached the 2025 quarterfinals, with Berlin falling to eventual champion Arden Louchheim.
Schroeder and Palmer are the new part of the story. BYU says this will be the first Utah Women’s State Amateur appearance for both.
Why the roster context matters
The current BYU women’s golf roster, pulled from BYU’s public roster feed, lists 10 players: four juniors, two seniors, two sophomores and two freshmen. Four list Utah hometowns, two list Nevada, and the room also includes players from Thailand, Mexico, Washington and Idaho.
That shape matters because this State Amateur group is not one isolated veteran carrying the flag. It runs through almost the whole lifecycle of the roster.
Banz and Berlin Long are juniors. They are the returners with 2025 State Amateur scars and receipts. Seo is the recent graduate with event history, including appearances in 2020 and 2023 and a hole-in-one during her 2020 quarterfinal match, according to BYU. Schroeder is a sophomore getting her first State Amateur start. Aadyn Long and Palmer are freshmen on the public roster, and now they get a local match-play runway before the normal college season gets loud again.
That is a useful mix. It gives BYU fans a look at the present, the next wave and a just-finished player in the same field.
Banz and the Long sisters carry the first read
If you want the fastest BYU angle, start with Banz and the Long sisters.
Banz already proved she can handle the qualifying part of this event. A 68 for medalist honors last year is not something to shrug at, even if match play ended earlier than she wanted. Stroke play and match play ask for different muscles. One rewards total-card control. The other can turn one bad hole into a shrug and one stolen hole into a swing. Banz has at least shown she can post the number that gets her into the real fight.
Berlin Long and Aadyn Long bring the quarterfinal receipt from 2025. That matters more than a polite “returning participant” tag. Quarterfinals mean they have already dealt with the day-to-day weirdness of the event: qualifying, bracket pressure, waiting, adjusting, and trying to keep the round from becoming bigger than the shot in front of them.
For BYU, that is worth filing away. The Cougars’ college schedule is not soft. The 2025-26 file had 12 events, including trips to New Mexico, Colorado, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Texas and Kentucky, plus the Big 12 Women’s Championship in Dallas and an NCAA regional in Louisville. Players who can stay comfortable in a local match-play bracket give the staff another kind of competitive evidence.
The freshmen are the fun part
Aadyn Long and Palmer are both listed as freshmen on the current roster. Palmer is from Las Vegas. Long is from Alpine and, like Berlin, came through Lone Peak.
That makes this week more than a veteran check-in. Freshmen do not need to win the whole thing for the week to matter. They need tournament reps that do not feel like a campus scrimmage. A State Amateur field at Oakridge can do that.
Schroeder sits in a similar bucket, just a year further along. She is listed as a sophomore from Twin Falls, Idaho, and BYU’s release says this is her first appearance in the event. For a program with only 10 roster spots, every new State Amateur data point feels a little louder than it would on a giant football depth chart.
This is where all-sports coverage earns its keep. You can learn something about a small roster in July if you know which receipts to save.
The fan takeaway
Nobody is pretending a Monday tee time in Farmington is going to hijack the BYU fan calendar. Football camp is close. Basketball has a five-star spotlight. Recruiting never sleeps, annoyingly enough.
Still, this is exactly the kind of BYU story that deserves a better shelf life than one official release.
Five current Cougars are in the Utah Women’s State Amateur. A recent graduate is there too. Banz, Berlin Long and Aadyn Long bring 2025 evidence. Schroeder and Palmer give the week a first-timer angle. The program has 20 BYU-connected wins in the event since 1980.
That is enough to check the leaderboard Monday and keep the bracket bookmarked after qualifying.
Source links
- BYU Athletics: Five Cougars set to compete in 120th Utah Women’s State Amateur
- Official BYU Athletics: women’s golf roster
- Official BYU Athletics API source used by BYU Sport Nuts: women’s golf roster data
- Official BYU Athletics API source used by BYU Sport Nuts: women’s golf schedule data
- BYU Sport Nuts context: women’s golf hub, women’s golf roster, women’s golf schedule, all BYU sports hub, BYU women’s sports roster guide
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