HIGH POINT, N.C. — The High Point University women's golf team made history and the nation is noticing.

After winning the program's first Big South Conference championship, multiple media outlets have inquired about how the Panthers were able to rewrite the record books in HPU Head Coach Lyndsey Hunnell's fourth season.

The High Point Enterprise and Spectrum News attended the team's NCAA Division I Selection Show Watch Party, where the Panthers learned they were the No. 9 seed in the Chapel Hill Regional for the team's first NCAA Regional appearance.
 
Dates: May 11-13
Location: Chapel Hill, N.C.
Course: UNC Finley GC
Par/Yardage: 70/6,177

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Tournament Central
 
Teams
1. Texas
2. North Carolina
3. Mississippi State
4. Oklahoma State
5. Kent State
6. Virginia
7. Michigan State
8. NC State
9. High Point
10. Furman
11. Richmond
12. Howard
 
Chapel Hill Regional Lineup
1. Makayla Grubb
2. Eva Lye
3. Anais Arafi
4. Anna Howerton
5. Ella Perna
Alternate: Savannah Cherry

Additionally, the College Golf Network has collaborated on social media posts and did a video feature on Makayla Grubb, the team's third straight Big South Freshman of the Year. To watch the interview, click HERE.

The Yardage Book etched out exactly how the Panthers and three-time Big South Coach of the Year Lyndsey Hunnell blossomed through depth, accountability, and players who can handle uncomfortable moments.

Read Built for This, By Larry Baumann of The Yardage Book:

Pausing on her way down the 18th fairway as she worked her way back to the final match of the Big South Championship, High Point University head coach Lyndsey Hunnell declared: "I'm clocking a 126 right now."             
  
What she didn't realize at that moment was that her Whoop heart rate monitor would climb to about 150 in roughly 30 minutes. That's when the decisive putt would fall in the final match of the championship, sealing a climactic victory for the Panthers – their first Big South title and the program's first NCAA Regional bid.

Sophomore Anais Arafi orchestrated the drama, battling UNC Asheville's Breanna Hoese over 22 holes before calmly dropping a downhill six-footer on the fourth extra hole. The 2025 Big South Freshman of the Year rallied from an early 3-down deficit to take a lead on 12, only to see it slip away again on 16.

Over the next six holes, neither player blinked. With each four-footer to halve a hole, the tension in the crowd of players and families following the action rose, along with Hunnell's heart rate.

What unfolded at the Big South Championship wasn't something High Point stumbled into. It was something Hunnell has been building toward since being named the Panthers' head coach in June 2022.

Her understanding of what that moment required began long before she arrived at High Point. As a player at the University of Virginia, she saw what separated programs that contended from those that didn't. Virginia reached the NCAA Championship in three of Hunnell's four years, and she found herself drawn not only to the competition, but to the profession.
 
"I remember thinking, 'wow, this is your job?'" she said of watching head coach Kim Lewellen, who has led her Virginia and Wake Forest teams to 16 NCAA Championship appearances, won the 2023 NCAA title, and was named national coach of the year that season.

What stayed with Hunnell wasn't only that Lewellen got to coach golf. It was how she did it.

"Everything had intention."

She carried that with her, beginning with her time as a grad student at Xavier University, where she saw a different version of it.

"Our Xavier team wanted to play for each other," she said. "I embodied that."

And it showed in her performance. Hunnell was named All-Big East after four top-10 finishes and helped lead the Musketeers to the school's first-ever NCAA Regionals in 2019.

That experience helped shape the team-first standard she would later try to build at High Point.

When Hunnell arrived at High Point from her first coaching position, as an assistant at Campbell University, where the Camels won two Big South titles in her three years as an assistant, the program wasn't positioned that way.

Rankings hovered in the upper 100s. Player development wasn't yet a defining strength. Expectations existed, but they weren't consistently reinforced.

Early in her tenure, when resources were more limited, Hunnell leaned on familiar support. Her father, Jeff, stepped in to help as a volunteer assistant as the program worked to establish itself.

He was still there at the Big South Championship, wearing out the Bermuda rough flanking the greens, an anxious spectator pacing as the playoff stretched on, as invested as anyone.

Early on, the program relied on support like Jeff Hunnell's wherever it could find it. Now, it's built to stand on its own.

That shift didn't begin with results. It began with behavior.

The culture work showed up in small, repeatable ways. Non-traveling players wished the lineup good luck before trips. The players created a weekly "family dinner." Hunnell had them build a vision board in the locker room, with every player contributing at least one team goal.
 
None of it was complicated. That was the point. The program was trying to make team-first behavior visible, repeatable, and player-owned.

During Hunnell's first fall, after a qualifying round on a Friday afternoon, rather than enjoy the evening like their college classmates, the players went back to the practice facility. On their own.

At the time, it was just a small moment. But it reflected the standard Hunnell was trying to establish – one that returning players like Anna Howerton and Ella Perna helped carry forward as the program began to take shape.

From there, the structure took hold. Hunnell doesn't recruit to rankings. She recruits to projection – players with room to grow who embrace competition and accountability. Lineups are fluid. Qualifying matters.
"I recruit team-oriented players… and off potential," she said. "You're gonna earn your spot. I don't play favorites."

In some cases, that meant shifting how players approached competition. The effect was subtle at first, but meaningful. Players stopped chasing outcomes and started managing rounds. They stopped reacting to bad stretches and started working through them.

Hunnell didn't build the program alone.

She brought in assistant coach Anna Redding – her former teammate at Virginia, longtime friend, and soon-to-be maid of honor – someone who understands her approach without needing it explained.

Hunnell had to work to get her there. Redding was playing professionally when the full-time assistant position opened, and Hunnell kept reminding her what High Point could offer, including the campus experience itself. At one point, she even brought Redding to High Point's fine dining restaurant, one of the campus amenities available to students and staff, as part of the sell.

The detail matters because High Point is not recruiting on golf alone. The campus, the resources, the broader athletics momentum, and the experience around the program have become part of what Hunnell can show recruits and staff. It's a different kind of advantage than a famous home course or decades of national tradition. But for a rising mid-major, it matters.
 
Hunnell and Redding complement each other, but not in rigid lanes. They divide coverage, create pressure together, and lean on different relationships depending on the player and the moment.
 
Redding can push players through course-management and match-play situations. Hunnell's strength is sensing what the player in front of her needs.
 
"I'm really good at reading people," she said.
 
That doesn't mean Hunnell is removed from player development. Quite the opposite. Her fingerprints are all over the way players are identified, challenged, and shaped – from recruiting players with room to grow, to building individualized goals, to helping them understand what makes them perform.
 
Redding's influence also shows up in smaller ways, including motivational notes she places in players' yardage books – the kind of detail that reinforces the balance between technical preparation and emotional support.
 
That balance showed up in the Big South final. Redding walked with Arafi for much of the match. But as it tightened on the final holes, Hunnell stepped in. She didn't need to rebuild the golf swing. She needed to read the moment.
That pattern has been clear across the High Point lineup all year and throughout Hunnell's tenure.
 
With the coaching staff aligned, Hunnell's vision began to manifest in the players she brought into the fold.

To read the rest of The Yardage Book article, click HERE.