Looking to Peak in the Postseason
Apr 22, 2026 | Women's Golf, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
Third-year Kansas State women's golf head coach Stew Burke is excited and curious. Coming off one of the best seasons in the program history and featuring two of the more talented women's golfers in the nation, Burke entered this year with his youngest team at K-State — a squad that didn't necessarily possess a true No. 1 leader, but that was drenched in potential.
Some skeptics across the nation believed that K-State was primed for a disappointing campaign this year, but the Wildcats head into the Big 12 Championship on Thursday ranked No. 38 in the nation, and they are pretty secure in reaching a second-straight NCAA Regional when the official bids are announced next Wednesday.
K-State advanced past the NCAA Lexington Regional to participate in the NCAA Championship last year behind Carla Bernat and Big 12 Champion Sophie Bert, and the Wildcats possessed a 288.13 team average.
This year, K-State has finished its last four tournaments in third place, fourth place, sixth place and third place, and its team average has actually improved to 287.93 from a year ago.
As for Burke's curiosity?
"We've not put together three good rounds all spring," Burke says. "I just want them to be peaking here in the Big 12 Championship. I just want three good rounds, and if that's good enough to hold the trophy, awesome, and if that's good enough for ninth place, we know we play in a good league and there's a lot of talent in it.
"The most important thing for us is we've put a really good plan together. We need to play three really solid rounds, and not just in the Big 12s but in the regionals. This is a team that knows how to advance. I'm excited for the challenge, but we understand the weight of expectation that goes along with it."
Burke spoke with K-State Sports Extra's D. Scott Fritchen about his third year at K-State, expectations, and the growth of the Wildcats as they head into the Big 12 Championships while eyeing a NCAA Regional bid.
D. Scott Fritchen: Let's start out talking about you for a moment. This is your third year as head coach at K-State. From becoming head coach on June 30, 2023, to now, how would you describe this journey with the Wildcats?
Stew Burke: It's really been everything I've wanted and more to this point. When you take a job, you outline your strategic plan, and the first three years are very important. You want to get in and establish your own culture and want to build toward that success that a place like Kansas State deserves and should rightfully have had. Lastly, you have to manage your own expectations. Having been here before as an assistant coach, I was a little bit more in tune with what we could achieve, and you have to be patient, too, to know that good things come to those who wait.
Fritchen: As a head coach, what are the keys or philosophies you lean on in building a team and guiding the ship?
Burke: The main thing is we want people that want to be at Kansas State. We're never going to be a program that has people coming here for any other reasons than to want 1) to get a great education and 2) to be better at golf. That's something we have to weed out and look at throughout the recruiting process. We're a hard-working program and a developmental program. So, we might not get those top-tier players throughout the recruiting process, but our track record has shown we can develop players into elite and world-class players that can make a name for the program on the global stage. That's something that's really, really important, is getting the right people into this program.
We're so fortunate to have such an amazing support staff and the support from our administration. That's clearly something that, compared to my peers, I'm very, very grateful for that not only our support staff is bought into to trying to make our program successful, but so is our administration with Gene Taylor and Casey Scott.
Fritchen: Last year was obviously special. In what ways did last year's success maybe carry over into this year, and how do you climb off that high from a year ago and rebuild with a new team?
Burke: The biggest this is this is the first time I've really had a really, really young team. We're playing one senior in Noa van Beek and all underclassmen with freshmen and sophomores in our lineup a majority of this year. We've made some mistakes — some coaching mistakes in tournaments and in lineup selection, and from a playing standpoint. There's just been a little bit of inexperience here and there for maybe a certain type of shot, but we have good leadership within the group, and that doesn't always mean our upperclassmen. They want to get better, and they want to win. That's really, really important. They see Kansas State as a team that goes to regionals and nationals and is competitive in the Big 12, and that's a big change from when we got here.
Fritchen: Last year, K-State earned a postseason bid for the first time since 2017. K-State is currently ranked No. 38 in the nation. Just how hungry are you to repeat that feat in earning a spot in a NCAA Regional for a second straight year?
Burke: We're pretty confident we're going to go to the NCAA Regionals this year. The thing that's exciting as a coach is to hear them talking about the national championship. That's maybe caused us to take our eye off the ball a little bit as a group. They've been wanting to get to the end of the season and into postseason play because they want to show what they're made of, and that's obviously when more eyes are on them. That's something we've addressed: You're only as good as your last tournament. What we did last year was phenomenal. Last year's achievements are this year's expectations, and managing those expectations is really, really important. It's really easy in our sport to look to the future and forget the present. That's something we've really been working hard on as a group — working to get incrementally better every single day.
Fritchen: You obviously have seen potential in your team all year. From where you started to where you are heading into the Big 12 Championship, how would you evaluate the growth and the strides of this team this year?
Burke: It's been really rewarding. Coach Rinko Mitsunaga has done a great job with identifying some areas that maybe I overlooked, and that's why we work great as a coaching duo. We really are a team. With the younger players, it's really the excitement factor of the future as well. We have a really strong class coming in next year, and we're only losing one senior this coming year as opposed to losing our No. 1 and No. 2 player last year and the experience of four seniors our very first year. Overall, I'm really excited with how they've progressed. With freshmen athletes, one day you think you absolutely got it and they're coasting and playing great, and the next day they hit a little bump in the road and can go sideways kind of quickly. Watching them having recovered from those bumps in the spring season and dedicate themselves to the here and now has been fun.
Fritchen: In the team's most recent outing, K-State produced its fourth top-three finish of the year by placing third at the Silicon Valley Showcase in California on March 31. How did you feel about the team coming out of that tournament and how pleased were you with how the team handled the past few weeks of practice?
Burke: Coming out of our last few events, we didn't struggle because we had top-five finishes in three events in a row, but we know there's much more to give there. We know we should've performed better in those events. It unfortunately highlighted some areas we've been working on, and we've seen a little bit of growth in those areas, but it showed us that we have a little way to go. We want to peak going into Big 12's and on into the regionals. We play in an incredibly tough league where any team in our conference can win the conference championship — which is a really cool thing to say — but at the same time, we know we have to be prepared and be at our best to represent this university the way they've done up until now.
Fritchen: During the season, Kelsey Chen captured the individual title at Puerto Rico, Noa van Beek won the Westbrook and Nanami Nakashima won the Powercat. They're also the three golfers on the team that average fewer than 73 strokes per round. How have those three been at leading the team this year?
Burke: They've all taken their turn. We don't have a No. 1 player, the presence of Carla, where you had that one leader on the course, and that's a good and a bad thing. The good is that everybody is striving and trying to fit into that role with their play and it can be them in any week, and the downside is you just don't have that reliable scorer. There's a lot of people around the nation who thought when our No. 1 player in Carla and our No. 2 player and Big 12 Champion Sophie (Bert) graduated that we'd take a drastic dip. We knew we had youth coming in and we were incredibly talented. That's been the nice thing to see, is that we've taken off where we left off, and we've made some nice improvements, and we've done some things we didn't do last year, and we've also done some things that've slowed our progress a little bit on the rankings side. We're ready for postseason. That's the message for everybody.
Fritchen: You've talked about the youth. Who are a couple or a few golfers who who've particularly enjoyed watch develop over the past year?
Burke: Keen Visavapattamawan, our player from Thailand, we've seen somebody who's come in with their own idea of how she did things to get better and we've really highlighted some areas that she's needed to improve in, and she's bought into what Coach Rinko and I have worked on with her. That's been exciting. She's a huge talent. Kelsey has all the talent in the world as a sophomore. We're really excited to have her and shape her into that No. 1 role moving forward. I think to have two really, really solid players, and then backed up by Casey Kang and Stalee Fields, who are starting to find their feet and a little more confidence in their game and starting to understand college golf a little bit more, that's been really rewarding.
Fritchen: What's the biggest thing you want your team to prove or to show in the Big 12 Championships?
Burke: We've not put together three good rounds all spring. I just want them to be peaking here in the Big 12 Championship. I just want three good rounds, and if that's good enough to hold the trophy, awesome, and if that's good enough for ninth place, we know we play in a good league and there's a lot of talent in it. The most important thing for us is we've put a really good plan together and we need to play three really solid rounds, and not just in the Big 12s but in the regionals. This is a team that knows how to advance. I'm excited for the challenge, but we understand the weight of expectation that goes along with it.
Third-year Kansas State women's golf head coach Stew Burke is excited and curious. Coming off one of the best seasons in the program history and featuring two of the more talented women's golfers in the nation, Burke entered this year with his youngest team at K-State — a squad that didn't necessarily possess a true No. 1 leader, but that was drenched in potential.
Some skeptics across the nation believed that K-State was primed for a disappointing campaign this year, but the Wildcats head into the Big 12 Championship on Thursday ranked No. 38 in the nation, and they are pretty secure in reaching a second-straight NCAA Regional when the official bids are announced next Wednesday.
K-State advanced past the NCAA Lexington Regional to participate in the NCAA Championship last year behind Carla Bernat and Big 12 Champion Sophie Bert, and the Wildcats possessed a 288.13 team average.
This year, K-State has finished its last four tournaments in third place, fourth place, sixth place and third place, and its team average has actually improved to 287.93 from a year ago.
As for Burke's curiosity?
"We've not put together three good rounds all spring," Burke says. "I just want them to be peaking here in the Big 12 Championship. I just want three good rounds, and if that's good enough to hold the trophy, awesome, and if that's good enough for ninth place, we know we play in a good league and there's a lot of talent in it.
"The most important thing for us is we've put a really good plan together. We need to play three really solid rounds, and not just in the Big 12s but in the regionals. This is a team that knows how to advance. I'm excited for the challenge, but we understand the weight of expectation that goes along with it."
Burke spoke with K-State Sports Extra's D. Scott Fritchen about his third year at K-State, expectations, and the growth of the Wildcats as they head into the Big 12 Championships while eyeing a NCAA Regional bid.
D. Scott Fritchen: Let's start out talking about you for a moment. This is your third year as head coach at K-State. From becoming head coach on June 30, 2023, to now, how would you describe this journey with the Wildcats?
Stew Burke: It's really been everything I've wanted and more to this point. When you take a job, you outline your strategic plan, and the first three years are very important. You want to get in and establish your own culture and want to build toward that success that a place like Kansas State deserves and should rightfully have had. Lastly, you have to manage your own expectations. Having been here before as an assistant coach, I was a little bit more in tune with what we could achieve, and you have to be patient, too, to know that good things come to those who wait.
Fritchen: As a head coach, what are the keys or philosophies you lean on in building a team and guiding the ship?
Burke: The main thing is we want people that want to be at Kansas State. We're never going to be a program that has people coming here for any other reasons than to want 1) to get a great education and 2) to be better at golf. That's something we have to weed out and look at throughout the recruiting process. We're a hard-working program and a developmental program. So, we might not get those top-tier players throughout the recruiting process, but our track record has shown we can develop players into elite and world-class players that can make a name for the program on the global stage. That's something that's really, really important, is getting the right people into this program.
We're so fortunate to have such an amazing support staff and the support from our administration. That's clearly something that, compared to my peers, I'm very, very grateful for that not only our support staff is bought into to trying to make our program successful, but so is our administration with Gene Taylor and Casey Scott.
Fritchen: Last year was obviously special. In what ways did last year's success maybe carry over into this year, and how do you climb off that high from a year ago and rebuild with a new team?
Burke: The biggest this is this is the first time I've really had a really, really young team. We're playing one senior in Noa van Beek and all underclassmen with freshmen and sophomores in our lineup a majority of this year. We've made some mistakes — some coaching mistakes in tournaments and in lineup selection, and from a playing standpoint. There's just been a little bit of inexperience here and there for maybe a certain type of shot, but we have good leadership within the group, and that doesn't always mean our upperclassmen. They want to get better, and they want to win. That's really, really important. They see Kansas State as a team that goes to regionals and nationals and is competitive in the Big 12, and that's a big change from when we got here.
Fritchen: Last year, K-State earned a postseason bid for the first time since 2017. K-State is currently ranked No. 38 in the nation. Just how hungry are you to repeat that feat in earning a spot in a NCAA Regional for a second straight year?
Burke: We're pretty confident we're going to go to the NCAA Regionals this year. The thing that's exciting as a coach is to hear them talking about the national championship. That's maybe caused us to take our eye off the ball a little bit as a group. They've been wanting to get to the end of the season and into postseason play because they want to show what they're made of, and that's obviously when more eyes are on them. That's something we've addressed: You're only as good as your last tournament. What we did last year was phenomenal. Last year's achievements are this year's expectations, and managing those expectations is really, really important. It's really easy in our sport to look to the future and forget the present. That's something we've really been working hard on as a group — working to get incrementally better every single day.
Fritchen: You obviously have seen potential in your team all year. From where you started to where you are heading into the Big 12 Championship, how would you evaluate the growth and the strides of this team this year?
Burke: It's been really rewarding. Coach Rinko Mitsunaga has done a great job with identifying some areas that maybe I overlooked, and that's why we work great as a coaching duo. We really are a team. With the younger players, it's really the excitement factor of the future as well. We have a really strong class coming in next year, and we're only losing one senior this coming year as opposed to losing our No. 1 and No. 2 player last year and the experience of four seniors our very first year. Overall, I'm really excited with how they've progressed. With freshmen athletes, one day you think you absolutely got it and they're coasting and playing great, and the next day they hit a little bump in the road and can go sideways kind of quickly. Watching them having recovered from those bumps in the spring season and dedicate themselves to the here and now has been fun.
Fritchen: In the team's most recent outing, K-State produced its fourth top-three finish of the year by placing third at the Silicon Valley Showcase in California on March 31. How did you feel about the team coming out of that tournament and how pleased were you with how the team handled the past few weeks of practice?
Burke: Coming out of our last few events, we didn't struggle because we had top-five finishes in three events in a row, but we know there's much more to give there. We know we should've performed better in those events. It unfortunately highlighted some areas we've been working on, and we've seen a little bit of growth in those areas, but it showed us that we have a little way to go. We want to peak going into Big 12's and on into the regionals. We play in an incredibly tough league where any team in our conference can win the conference championship — which is a really cool thing to say — but at the same time, we know we have to be prepared and be at our best to represent this university the way they've done up until now.
Fritchen: During the season, Kelsey Chen captured the individual title at Puerto Rico, Noa van Beek won the Westbrook and Nanami Nakashima won the Powercat. They're also the three golfers on the team that average fewer than 73 strokes per round. How have those three been at leading the team this year?
Burke: They've all taken their turn. We don't have a No. 1 player, the presence of Carla, where you had that one leader on the course, and that's a good and a bad thing. The good is that everybody is striving and trying to fit into that role with their play and it can be them in any week, and the downside is you just don't have that reliable scorer. There's a lot of people around the nation who thought when our No. 1 player in Carla and our No. 2 player and Big 12 Champion Sophie (Bert) graduated that we'd take a drastic dip. We knew we had youth coming in and we were incredibly talented. That's been the nice thing to see, is that we've taken off where we left off, and we've made some nice improvements, and we've done some things we didn't do last year, and we've also done some things that've slowed our progress a little bit on the rankings side. We're ready for postseason. That's the message for everybody.
Fritchen: You've talked about the youth. Who are a couple or a few golfers who who've particularly enjoyed watch develop over the past year?
Burke: Keen Visavapattamawan, our player from Thailand, we've seen somebody who's come in with their own idea of how she did things to get better and we've really highlighted some areas that she's needed to improve in, and she's bought into what Coach Rinko and I have worked on with her. That's been exciting. She's a huge talent. Kelsey has all the talent in the world as a sophomore. We're really excited to have her and shape her into that No. 1 role moving forward. I think to have two really, really solid players, and then backed up by Casey Kang and Stalee Fields, who are starting to find their feet and a little more confidence in their game and starting to understand college golf a little bit more, that's been really rewarding.
Fritchen: What's the biggest thing you want your team to prove or to show in the Big 12 Championships?
Burke: We've not put together three good rounds all spring. I just want them to be peaking here in the Big 12 Championship. I just want three good rounds, and if that's good enough to hold the trophy, awesome, and if that's good enough for ninth place, we know we play in a good league and there's a lot of talent in it. The most important thing for us is we've put a really good plan together and we need to play three really solid rounds, and not just in the Big 12s but in the regionals. This is a team that knows how to advance. I'm excited for the challenge, but we understand the weight of expectation that goes along with it.
Players Mentioned
/ Women's Golf
/ Women's Golf
/ Women's Golf
/ Women's Golf
/ Women's Golf
/ Women's Golf
/ Women's Golf
/ Women's Golf
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