Waves of injuries for Pepperdine women | Golf News and Tour Information [Video]

When the Pepperdine women, ranked 10th in the final Golf World/NGCA fall coaches’ poll, tee it up next Monday out at Palos Verdes GC for the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge, they’ll play their spring opener without the newest member of their squad, Ayaka Kaneko. The 19-year-old from Honolulu, the 2007 U.S. Girls’ Junior runner-up, has been nursing a sore left wrist since enrolling at the Malibu school last month. An MRI recently revealed Kaneko has a cyst, although doctors told her Wednesday the pain was unrelated, the result instead of a strain in the wrist.

“The good news is she’s not going to need surgery,” said Pepperdine women’s coach Laurie Gibbs. “She just needs rest and to go through some treatment.” Among the remedies doctors are using is acupuncture.

Initially Kaneko’s problem sounded very similar to the one Arizona State’s Azahara Munozhad recently suffered; the NCAA champion had a cyst removed from her wrist that had been causing her discomfort, which will …