NASHVILLE — The LSU women’s golf team, preseason ranked 11th in the country, will get a tough test early as the Lady Tigers take part in the Mason Rudolph Championships presented by BellSouth.
The event will be held at the Par 72 Ironhorse Course of the Legends Club of Tennessee. The 54-hole tournament will be played over two days with 36 holes on Monday and the final 18 holes on Tuesday. There is a men’s tournament running at the same time on the Roper’s Knob Course of the Legends Club, making this the only Division I tournament in the nation that will concurrently host men’s and women’s events at the same site.
Joining LSU in the tournament will be Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Furman, Mississippi, Mississippi State, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Nevada-Las Vegas, Ohio State, Tulane, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest.
That team lineup could change somewhat because of the travel situations of the past week. The LSU team drove to Nashville rather than attempt to fly.
The event will mark the senior season debut of GolfWeek’s No. 1 Women’s Amateur golfer, LSU’s Meredith Duncan, of Shreveport. Duncan is ranked third in the nation in the pre-season college golf polls and was a first-team All-SEC and second team All-American a year ago.
Also in the LSU lineup will be Gretna senior Lindy Hitdlebaugh; Sulphur junior Erin Sarver, Dallas freshman Brooke Shelton and Rio de Janeiro sophomore Isabel Dornellas.
Sophomore Devon Day will play as an individual competitor for the Tigers in the tournament.
“I don’t know for sure if we are at our best right now,” said LSU coach Karen Bahnsen, who enters her 18th season at the helm of the LSU women’s team. “Like everyone else, it’s been a difficult week and concentration has been hard. But we were able to get some practice in and we look forward to getting our season started. We have some very tough tournaments in the fall that will help round us in to the type of team we need to be in the spring.”
Duncan averaged 74.42 in 33 rounds for the Tigers last season, while Dornellas was a 77.50 and Hitdlebaugh average 78.07.