Women's Golf
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Email:
- saagaard@calpoly.edu
- Phone:
- 805-748-5616
Sofie Aagaard, an assistant coach for the women's golf program at Cal for three seasons, was named head coach of the Cal Poly women's golf team by Mustang director of athletics Don Oberhelman in July 2015. She has guided the program to a pair of Big West Conference titles (2017, 2021) and NCAA regional berths.
In her first season as head coach of the Mustangs, Aagaard guided the squad to a second-place finish in the Big West Conference Championship, four shots behind UC Riverside. Cal Poly led after the first two rounds of play. Aagaard was named Big West Coach of the Year by her peers and Madison Hirsch earned second-team All-Big West honors. Hirsch also was one of four Mustangs to earn NCGA All-American Scholar honors.
Steady improvement the next season (2016-17) produced four tournament wins, including Cal Poly's first Big West team championship in women's golf and its first postseason appearance, the NCAA Albuquerque Regional. The Mustangs edged defending champion UC Riverside by one stroke at Oak Quarry Golf Club. Sophie Bergland was named to the All-Big West first team while Jamie Binns and Desiree Gillaspy landed on the second team.
Aagaard was honored as Coach of the Year for the second straight year.
Two more Mustangs earned NCGA All-American Scholar recognition and the team finished the season with a No. 84 national ranking. The squad produced school records for 18, 36 and 54 holes and Bergland set a new 54-hole record with one tournament title.
Four years later, Cal Poly claimed its second Big West crown, capping the 2021 season at the Yorba Linda Country Club. Four Mustangs placed in the top 12, led by Caroline Cantlay's second-place finish, and Aagaard was named Big West Coach of the Year a third time. Winner of the season-opening Valley Invitational, Cal Poly competed in the NCAA Stanford Regional. Vanessa Wang was the top Mustang finisher with rounds of 71, 71 and 74 for a 24th-place tie and finished the year with a team-leading 75.3 scoring average.
Nicole Neale was named to the all-conference first team as well as Big West Freshman of the Year. Wang and Cantlay earned spots on the all-conference second team while Elizabeth Scholtes was an honorable mention.
The 2017-18 squad opened the year with a victory in the Rose City Collegiate, placed second in the Cal Poly Invitational and finished fourth in the Big West Conference Championship. Two Mustangs earned all-conference honors and Cantlay earned Cal Poly's first Big West Freshman of the year award. Two more Mustangs were named NCGA All-American scholars and the team finished the year with a No. 93 national ranking thanks in part to a new season team scoring record and new 18-, 36- and 54-hole team scoring records.
During the 2018-19 season, the Mustangs won the UC Irvine Invitational, placed second at the Battle at the Rock and finished tied for fifth in the conference finals. Three Mustangs earned All-Big West honors and Scholtes was named Big West freshman of the year. Two Mustangs were named NCGA All-American scholars and Cantlay earned a tournament title and set a school record for her scoring. The team also lowered the school 18-, 36- and 54-hole records and set a new season scoring record of 300.3 strokes.
The 2020 campaign, cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, included first-place finishes at the Battle at Old Works and Wyoming Cowgirl Desert Intercollegiate in addition to one third-place finish and a pair of fourths. Cantlay was the team's top scorer, averaging 75.1 strokes per round, and Vanessa Wang was right behind at 75.2. Cantlay set a new Cal Poly single-round record of 65 at the Rainbow Wahine Invitational and the team set a new 18-hole record of 277 in the second round of that event.
A 2006 Cal graduate with a bachelor's degree in political economies of industrial societies, Aagaard was the first three-time All-American in program history.
Originally from Sweden, Aagaard (Andersson) began her college career as a freshman at Mississippi State University, earning SEC second-team all-conference honors before transferring to Cal in 2003.
While at Cal, she was a three-time NCAA Division I All-American and a member of the team finishing in the top five at the NCAA Championships three years in a row (2004-06). Aagaard, who finished her career with a school-record 74.2 average for the Bears, was a two-time All-West Region honoree and twice earned All-Pac-10 Conference second-team accolades in 2005 and 2006 in addition to All-Pac-10 honorable mention praise in 2004.
Aagaard's highest NCAA finish was sixth place in 2004, she captured the 2005 Spartan Invitational individual title and she recorded 16 individual top-10 finishes while at Cal.
Qualifying for the professional tour right out of Cal, Aagaard played six years on the Symetra Tour and qualified for the LPGA Tour in 2008. In addition, she competed in two U.S. Women's Open Championships (Oakmont 2010, the Broadmoor 2011).
While competing on tour, Aagaard was also engaged in improving the Symetra Tour from a player's standpoint by being a member of the Player Advisory Board.
Aagaard was a member of the Swedish National Team from 1999-2006, helping her country to the 2004 World Amateur Team Championships gold medal in Puerto Rico and the 2006 silver medal in South Africa. She competed in five European Team Championships, assisting Sweden to a pair of silver medals and two bronze medals, and finished fifth in the 2005 European Individual Championships in Portugal.
As an assistant coach at Cal, Aagaard helped advance the Bears to the NCAA National Championship in both 2014 and 2015 and coached the squad to tournament wins at the Ptarmigan Invitational at Colorado State in September 2013 and the BYU Invitational at Entrada in March 2015.
At Cal Poly, Aagaard's Mustangs have claimed three straight Big West Conference freshman of the year awards -- Cantlay in 2018, Scholtes in 2019 and Neale in 2021. The award was not presented in 2000 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aagaard is a LPGA class B teaching professional and was named 2019 LPGA Western Section Coach of the Year. She served as an assistant coach for the International team at the 2020 Arnold Palmer Cup (the International team won at Bay Hill in December 2020) and was named head coach of the International team for the 2021 Arnold Palmer Cup at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Illinois.
Sofie married Christian Aagaard in November 2012.
Aagaard, a volunteer assistant coach of the women's golf team at Cal Poly during the fall of 2012, assumed full coaching responsibilities handled previously by Scott Cartwright. Cartwright was head coach of both the Mustang men's and women's programs for 12 years and retired from the men's program following the 2019-20 season.
The hiring of a full-time women's head coach was made possible in part by a $1.1 million gift from local golf enthusiasts and philanthropists Michael and Sammy Pineau, part of a campaign to create a $5-7 million endowment that will fund much needed golf scholarships and bolster the program's operating budget. "If it wasn't for the Pineau gift and the momentum of our fundraising effort, this would not be possible," said Cal Poly Associate Athletic Director for Development Ashley Offermann.
