Is Raina Ports the best golfer in program history?

Somebody had to be the first, the original Best Golfer in Program History. That one, unlike the other questions that need to be answered in this article, is easy. It was Brandy Casey, hands down.

When Montana played in its first-ever tournament, the Bobcat Riverside Invitational in Bozeman in September 1993, Casey won by five strokes in her first-ever tournament as a Grizzly.

One week later, she won the Highland Invitational in Missoula by 15 strokes. She made it three for three when she won the Grizzly Fall Classic in early October, then won another tournament in the spring.

Casey, who transferred to Montana from Ohlone Junior College in California, would play for the Grizzlies for two years. Over 14 tournaments, she won six times, 11 times finishing in the top 10.

More than 30 years later, she still has twice as many wins as anybody else in program history. In fact, she has one-third of Montana's all-time tournament wins, six of the 18.

But is she still the best golfer in program history? And who first took that title away from her, if anyone has? And who holds the belt now?

Nobody has more top-10 finishes, 14, than Jennifer Chappell (1995-99) and Krista Swanson (2003-07). Katie Jacobson (2002) and Jasi Acharya (2006) are the program's only Big Sky Conference champions.

Tara Green, who won three tournaments, has the best career scoring average for players who have wrapped up their careers at 76.85. Casey's career average of 79.9 no longer makes the top 20.

Raina Ports, through three tournaments of her senior year, has a fall stroke average of 74.9. Her career average is 76.1 and dropping by the round. She could be the first player in program history to have a career scoring average lower than 76.

Does that make her the best golfer in program history? In 30 career tournaments, she has four times finished in the top 10, once in the top five, tying for fourth at the Red Rocks Invitational in Arizona in March 2024. Her best finish at the Big Sky Championship was last spring's tie for 14th.

How to make sense of it all? Who to look to for some insight? How about reaching back to the start and asking Casey her thoughts.

"My era was different. It was young, it was new. Today's women's collegiate golf is completely different," says Casey, who's living the dream, the LPGA Director of Instruction at Somersett Golf and Country Club outside of Reno, her home just a short golf cart ride away.

"The sport's changed, the equipment's changed, how they train is different. That's awesome that (Ports) is doing so great. Kudos." Then she throws in the one thing that connects all of the players who have ever swung a club for the Grizzlies, something that spans the generations. "It's a hard game."

Kris Nord was hired in May 1993 to be the first coach of the program, something he took on in addition to his tennis duties. It wasn't long after that Director of Athletics Bill Moos handed him a note he'd held on to, from Casey. He told Nord that he should definitely check out this player from California.

He's glad he did.

Casey was a soccer player but the daughter of a golfer who introduced her to the sport at the age of 12. She didn't give the game much thought or energy until her senior year of high school, when she determined golf had the better chance of getting her to college.

She started taking lessons, bounced around between some junior colleges in California, working at driving ranges to pay tuition, making the men's team at De Anza College, winning a trip to Montana. Wait, what?

"My friend and I won a trip to Montana, so we said, let's check out Missoula. That's supposed to be a cool, little town," Casey says. "We drove around and said, this place is awesome."

They stopped by the University Golf Course, learned it had just been announced that Montana would be adding a women's golf program for the 1993-94 season, were told to stop by the fieldhouse, ask for a guy by the name of Moos.

"I met him and said, I want to play golf. What do I have to do? He's thinking I'm some superstar from California, which I wasn't. I shot mid-80s. I went to admissions and applied, kept his card, then connected with Kris Nord and the rest is history."

Casey's four wins in 1993-94 reflected the state of collegiate women's golf at the time. Win 1: six teams, 30 players. Win 2: two teams, 10 players. Win 3: five teams, 27 players. Win 4: six teams, 31 players. Casey's round-by-round scores in those wins: 77-76-81-80-78-77-79.

But she won and that has to count for something, right? In that era, she was the best player among her peers. And isn't that why everybody takes their very first shot, to come out on top? Isn't that the ultimate goal of competition?

"She shot what she needed to win," says Nord, who led the program through its first three years before taking it over again in 2017 and coaching the Grizzlies through his retirement in 2023, meaning he recruited and coached both Casey and Ports.

"Courses are more manicured. They are better these days. If you got off the fairways in the 80s or 90s, it was a jungle. There are so many intangibles in that way. It comes down to making putts and making swings under pressure. Brandy was very solid there."

Casey forced people to take notice of this new program as she tied for second at the Big Sky Conference Championship in her first year at Montana, tied for third in her second and final season. Seven teams and 35 players competed at each tournament.

"I liked that the conference was small and every event was comfortable. I felt like I could perform at my best. My mission was just to be the best I could for the University," she says. "I was able to give the University a lot of recognition during the start of the program. How cool is that?

"I just thought the whole experience was the red-carpet treatment. It was everything I wanted. I loved it. It was like a dream come true."

Jacobson, in the spring of 2002, won the Big Sky title as a sophomore with scores of 78, 76 and 76 before transferring to Minnesota.

The program's biggest achievement came in 2006, when Montana, with scores of 298, 305 and 301 won the Big Sky championship at Palm Valley Golf Club in Goodyear, Ariz. Acharya (73-75-71) won the tournament, her only collegiate title. Swanson (74-74-74) came in second.

Sacramento State won the 2025 championship, carding team scores of 282, 285 and 286. Nine players had at least one round in the 60s.

"One significant change from the 90s to now, the golf ball and equipment is much better," said Nord, who had 1.5 scholarships to work with in his first years as Montana's golf coach. "The ball flies longer and spins better, so you see a lot more kids shooting lower. That's one thought.

"There weren't junior golf association tournaments like there are now. You can sharpen your skills year-round. It's out there if you have the means to do it. It's just a different ball game. In Brandy's day, you had the high school season, the women's state am. That was about it."

Montana's next individual win, after Acharya's Big Sky title, would not come for another six years, until Green won the Folino Invitational in Industry Hills, Calif., in February 2012.

After opening with a 74, Green would card a 68 in the second round, matching Jill Walker's program record. It was more than a dozen years ago, but Green remembers it like it was yesterday.

"The best round of my whole life, the funnest round," she says. "My parents and sister were there. The girl I was playing with was so nice and so encouraging. Her name was Margo. I remember every detail. I made a 50-foot winding putt on the final hole and thought, what is happening? I'll never forget it."

She slept on four-stroke lead before the next day's final 18 holes. Or tried to sleep. The lead was one thing. Knowing she would have Taylor Fowler in her threesome for the final round only added to her restlessness.

"I did not sleep at all. I knew I was playing with Ricky Fowler's sister. What if Ricky Fowler shows up? I just had all these emotions. I was on such an emotional rollercoaster."

She shot a final-round 78 to hold off Fowler and Gonzaga's Alice Kim by a stroke, losing the lead to Kim on the final day but reclaiming it on the tournament's penultimate hole.

Green put herself on the very, very short list of Best Golfer in Program History over her four-year career, when she played in 42 tournaments, the most ever by a Grizzly. She would collect two more wins and have 10 top-10 finishes.

A decade later, married and with two daughters, she was living in Cedar City, Utah, when the Southern Utah head coach job opened. She was asked, she accepted and among the golfers she inherited was Natcharee Thanchitnithithanya of Thailand.

The sophomore played in two tournaments that fall, shooting rounds of 72, 74, 66, 73, 68 and 67. "She was so relaxed. She wouldn't know her score half the time. She didn't have a care in the world where I would have been freaking out," says Green.

She had another golfer that year who had a 10-tournament scoring average of 72.8. It gave her an up-close look at how the sport had changed in a relatively short period of time.

"I had players who were shooting under par and not winning tournaments," says Green. "If I had shot those scores, I would have won by a landslide."

So, if Green had a vote, she would cast it for Ports as the best golfer in program history, despite her lack of a tournament victory. "I would go based off of scores instead of wins. She's been killing it but she's going up against way better players than I did. I think she is No. 1 in my opinion."

Ports disagrees, knowing this is all just fleeting, her numbers just a point on a measuring stick, the mark certain to keep going lower. And lower. And lower.

"I don't think so," Ports said when asked if she is the best golfer in program history. "Maybe numbers-wise but I don't think best golfer. Everyone is getting better, every team is getting better. Ten years from now, the scoring average could be 70 or 72."

One day you're at the leading edge of that improvement, the next you're in the past, your 76-point-something scoring average something players in the middle of the pack are posting.

"It's super hard to compare," said Nord's replacement, Jimmy Mee. "It's Tiger versus Jack. The game is so different that it's hard to make a comparison. Golf has gotten so much bigger, especially on the women's side. The fields are so deep. You could go out and play really well and finish 13th."

It was Woods who Ports grew up playing in front of, at least in the family's basement in their Ohio home, Ports hitting into a net, posters of Tiger at different points in his swing lining the wall, from start to finish.

The family moved to Arizona when the Ports sisters – Hannah also plays for the Grizzlies – were 8, Ports, like Casey decades earlier, finally giving up soccer to go all in on golf as her avenue to competing in college.

Her third collegiate round was a 74. Her fourth was a 71. She 15 times in her career has shot a 72 or better. But only four times has cracked the top 10 in 30 tournaments played.

"Raina is insanely consistent, probably the most consistent golfer we've had, but the fields she's competing against are so deep and have so many good players," says Mee. "If you're going to win a tournament, it's going to take something like a 6-under score."

Ports had her first chance for a collegiate win at the Red Rocks Invitational in 2024, opening with rounds of 71 and 70 and taking the lead into the last holes of the final round.

Mee still thinks about what happened on the next-to-last hole, when Ports stepped up to a par 5 and grabbed driver. "I kick myself to this day," he says. "I lost sleep about it." He saw what was happening, what could potentially happen but gave Ports some space to make her own decision.

With a driver, she could hit herself farther down the fairway but also into trouble. With something less than driver, she wouldn't be able to reach said trouble. And all she needed to do was post a 5. She didn't need to make anything special happen. She was playing with the lead with two holes to go.

Ah, golf. "I got in my head. Oh my gosh, if I just do this perfectly," she says. She would end up with a triple-bogey and end up tying for fourth, her chance for collegiate win No. 1 gone, just like that.

"I think about it a lot," adds Mee. "She wasn't hitting her driver the best. I was thinking, let's hit hybrid here. She reached into her bag and pulled out her driver, so I thought, sweet, she's confident. She didn't need to birdie the hole. Now if she gets into that situation, she knows what she needs to do."

And that's the rub. Will she be able to get to that position again? "She is incredibly talented but she is up against such strong fields," Mee said. "It's not out of the question that she could win a tournament. If she gets the putter going, look out."

It's the tee where Ports separates herself, if not always in distance or accuracy then in demeanor. She attacks her drives like she has a personal vendetta against the ball, frame-by-frame photos showing Ports uncoiling and unleashing a pent-up anger. It's both thrilling and terrifying.

Then you meet her and realize that's just on-course Raina.

"I'm very competitive and a very intense person on the golf course," she says. "Everyone is like, you look so angry, but I'm not someone who can lose focus and play well. I have to be locked in the whole time.

"You have to be, because every shot counts. It's so competitive, you feel like you can't make any mistakes out there if you're trying to win a tournament."

So, we're back to the wins. Is that the separator? Or is it the number of strokes it takes to get around the course? Casey was the best at the former, but in a different era. But it was her era and she stood out in it. As for Ports, it's her scores that separate her from every other Griz golfer ever. And that's something.

Can a distinction be made? Can a list be formulated? Green has a No. 1. Ports doesn't think she's earned it. Maybe we need to take the Mt. Rushmore approach, which gives us four spots to fill.

Better ask Nord, who was never far from the golf program over its entire existence, even after he handed it off to Joanne Steele, who would lead it for the next 15 years, his office next door to hers.

"If I'm under the gun, I'd take Brandy, I'd take some of the kids Joanne had, I'd take Tara Green, some of the kids I had. I'd throw them in with Raina," he says, taking us past four. Even expanding the list, we've managed to break contain. "It's so hard to compare the eras."

Maybe it can't be done at all. And maybe it doesn't have to be. Maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe it's best to celebrate each of them, excellent golfers of their era, in their own way, the best golfers Montana has ever had.

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Ports and her teammates will compete Monday and Tuesday at the Sun Mountain Intercollegiate at The Ranch Club in Missoula, along with golfers from Eastern Washington, Idaho, Idaho State, Montana State, Portland State and Weber State.

Teams will play 36 holes on Monday, 18 on Tuesday. Start time is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. each day but is subject to frost delays.

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Raina Ports

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