NEW ORLEANS — The LSU women’s golf team opens its spring portion of the golf season Monday at English Turn just outside the Crescent City when the Lady Tigers take part in the Nokia Sugar Bowl Classic.
The tournament features separate events for men and women’s and in the women’s field with LSU and Tulane are Alabama, Campbell, East Carolina, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and TCU. The event features 36 holes of play on Monday with the final 18 holes set for Tuesday.
The Lady Tigers enter the spring 28th in the country in the Sagarin Performance Rankings after a much improved fall season. LSU will host two events this spring at its home course, the University Club. The first is just one month away as the LSU/Cleveland Golf Classic has been moved to March 5-7 to make way for the Tigers to also host the Southeastern Conference Women’s Championships at the club in April.
LSU’s lineup for the opening event will be junior Brooke Shelton, freshman Melissa Eaton, sophomore Vicky Meyer, freshman Alexis Rather and senior Devon Day. Shelton had the best scoring average of the fall with a 75.73 for 11 rounds and she is coming off a sixth place finish in the final tournament of the fall at Furman. Four of the five players in the opening spring lineup had at least one top 10 finish in the fall.
“We are really anxious to play again in competition,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen. “This is a good group that should get stronger as the spring rolls along. We are really looking forward to the events we will host at the University Club this year and we want to continue to improve each time out and get ourselves back into the post-season mix again.”
For those in the New Orleans area, admission to the Nokia Sugar Bowl event at English Turn is free of charge.