BATON ROUGE — The LSU women’s golf team, which is expected to open its 2001 Fall Season Monday in Nashville, is ranked 11th in the preseason Golf World College Coaches’ Poll announced on Thursday.
The Lady Tigers, 12th in last year’s final poll, opens play Monday and Tuesday at the Mason Rudolph Championships at the Legends Club in Franklin, Tenn., outside of Nashville, the first of four tournaments in the fall season. LSU will host two tournaments in the spring, the LSU/Cleveland Golf Classic in early April and the Tigers and the University Club will host the NCAA East Regional Tournament in May, 2002.
Duke received 13 of the 17 first place votes and the No. 1 ranking in the poll, followed by Auburn of the SEC at No. 2. Texas is third, Arizona fourth with defending champion Georgia tied with Tulsa for fifth. Southern California, Stanford, Oklahoma State and New Mexico State round out the top 10.
Tennessee at No. 13, Vanderbilt at No. 21 and Florida at No. 25 are the other SEC tem ranked in the poll
LSU senior Meredith Duncan, the United States Women’s Amateur Champion, and the No. 1-ranked women’s Amateur in the GolfWeek Performance poll, is ranked third in the pre-season list of the 50 top women’s collegiate players.
Duncan, from Shreveport was a first-team All-SEC and second-team All-America a season ago. She is ranked behind sophomore Lorena Ochoa of Arizona and senior Candy Hannemann of Duke. Celeste Troche of Auburn is ranked fourth.