Longtime donors fund endowed assistant coach position

The Stanford women’s golf team is enjoying a banner year, having secured its third NCAA championship and cheering alums Rose Zhang, ’25 (United States), who turned pro last year, and Albane Valenzuela, ’20 (Switzerland), as they competed at the Paris 2024 Olympics. 

Now, the Cardinal has another reason for celebration: A significant gift from the Duan family, longtime friends of the golf program, will provide long-term support for recruiting and retaining the game’s most talented assistant coaches. The inaugural Duan Family Assistant Women's Golf Coach will be Demi Runas, the latest addition to the program’s coaching staff.

“We are very grateful for the Duan family’s generous continued support,” said Jaquish & Kenninger Director of Athletics Bernard Muir. “Our women’s golf program is talented, focused, and committed. With their Stanford community behind them, their future is even brighter.”  

This is not the first contribution the Duan family has made to bolster Stanford golf. As passionate fans of the men’s and women’s varsity teams, they have provided foundational support for both programs, as well as the Siebel Varsity Golf Training Complex.

The family says their giving is inspired by a desire to help Stanford’s student-athletes have the opportunity to compete at the highest levels. When recent changes to NCAA guidelines  made it possible to increase the size of the women’s golf coaching staff, the Duans stepped forward once again, with an endowed gift to sustain strong teaching, leadership, and mentoring for the Cardinal’s golfers.

Stanford women’s golf secured its most recent national championship last season—the program’s third title since the NCAA switched the women’s golf championship to match play format in 2015 and the most among women's golf programs dating back to 2008. The Cardinal is the only team to win multiple NCAA championships during the match play era and the only program to win an NCAA championship after entering as the No. 1 seed. In addition, they are the only team to reach the match play portion of the championship every year it has been offered.
 
Members of the women’s golf team have won individual championships four times. Shelley Hamlin won the women's national intercollegiate individual golf championship in 1971 (an event conducted by the Division of Girls' and Women's Sports, which evolved into the current NCAA women's golf championship). More recently, Stanford golfers won individual NCAA titles three years in a row: Rachel Heck in 2021 and Rose Zhang in 2022-23. Zhang is the only woman who has ever won two NCAA individual titles.

In 2023–24, five Stanford golfers were named All-Americans by both the Women’s Golf Coaches Association and Golfweek. The Cardinal boasts the top-ranked incoming recruiting class in the nation, per Golf Channel.

“The Duan family continues to be one of our team’s most stalwart supporters,” said Anne Walker, the Margot and Mitch Milias Director of Women’s Golf. “This gift is a tangible expression of the confidence they have in our team’s potential and our ongoing commitment to working hard and achieving excellence. We look forward to using this momentum to build upon our recent success—and to continue making history.” 

This story originally appeared on Go Stanford.