BATON ROUGE — While this will be the 19th year that the LSU women’s golf team has hosted a spring tournament in Baton Rouge, this year’s event has a certain “new” flavor associated with it.
The most obvious change is the location as the tournament moves from Fairwood Country Club to the team’s official home course, the University Club, as the course will host its first major college event on the layout which will play to par 72 and over 6,200 yards.
Also there is a new name and sponsor as the former LSU-Fairwood Invitational now becomes known as the LSU/Cleveland Golf Classic as presented by the Tiger Athletic Foundation.
The other new thing is the date. Officials moved the tournament some three weeks back in the calendar from mid-March to early-April to allow for better weather which seemed to at times hinder the Invitational. This year the forecast calls for warm, sunny conditions through the weekend.
“We are very excited about this first tournament at the University Club,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen. “It’s been open about 18 months and is developing very nicely. I think it will continue to develop over the years into one of college golf’s top venues. The course is in excellent shape.”
LSU, ranked ninth in the both the Sagarin/Golf Week and MasterCard College Golf Foundation poll, is coming off a strong second place finish behind second-ranked Duke at Georgia last weekend.
Besides LSU, six other top 50 women’s teams will be in action on the University Club layout including 22nd-ranked Mississippi State, South Florida (38), Tulane (39), Arkansas (43) and Alabama (44). The remainder of the 12-team field is Arkansas-Little Rock, Memphis, North Carolina Wilmington, North Texas and Southern Methodist.
There are a total of 10 golfers participating in the Sagarin top 100, led by 12th-ranked Lisette Lee of LSU. Lee, who won her first collegiate tournament as a freshman in sudden death at Fairwood Country Club in 1997, picked up her second win in wire-to-wire fashion at South Carolina last month. The Kenner senior leads the team in stroke average at 74.62 strokes per round after shooting three under par to finish second last week at Georgia.
She will be joined in the LSU lineup by Shreveport sophomore Meredith Duncan. The former Byrd High basketball star, whose sister won the Louisiana high school championship earlier this week in Baton Rouge, has become a golf star and is now ranked 19th in the country with a 75.23 stroke average and a team-best five top 10s this season.
LSU will also go with Tina Howard (36th nationally), the sophomore from New Zealand, and South Bend junior Katy Wilkinson (86th nationally), along with Gretna sophomore Lindy Hitdlebaugh. Erin Sarver, Rebecca Barrow and Missy Ballew will all compete in the individual competition, but will not be available for use in the team scoring.
Others in the Sagarin Top 100 expected to tee it up this weekend will be Paula Carter (53) and Sarah Johnston (70) of Alabama, Lina Thoren (71) and Anna Gertsson (95) of Mississippi State and South Florida’s Kelly Lagedrost (91).
“Our team has been playing some strong and consistent golf the last several weeks,” said Bahnsen. “The girls are really looking forward to getting to play on what is truly a home course. It will be a tough challenge, but we are focused to make the best of it.”
LSU last won the 54-hole tournament, which runs through Sunday with 18 holes of play each day, in 1998.
Tee times will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday and 8 a.m. on Sunday with LSU set to go off Friday with Alabama and Mississippi State beginning around 9:15 a.m. Admission to the tournament is free.