PARRISH, Fla. — The LSU women’s golf team picked a perfect time and a perfect place to travel to open its spring season as they begin play Monday in the Central District Classic.
A tournament in February hosted by Michigan State needs to be somewhere warm and temperatures in the 70s are expected to greet the teams when they tee off at 7 a.m. CST for the first of 36 holes over the par-72 River Wilderness Golf Course.
A total of 14 teams will take part in this event with Michigan State and LSU joined by Baylor, Illinois State, Kansas State, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, SMU and Texas Tech.
This will be the Lady Tigers third straight appearance in the tournament, which the Tigers won in 2004 in wire-to-wire fashion over host Michigan State. LSU shot 39-over 903 to win the tournament in 2004, but finished fourth a year ago with a three-round score of 897.
The Lady Tigers had trouble putting consecutive rounds together in the fall season with a best finish of fourth in the Chrysler Challenge at Sandestin, Fla. But Coach Karen Bahnsen feels her team is ready to make some noise in the spring.
“The girls have been working very hard and are looking forward to putting themselves in position for the postseason,” said Bahnsen, in her 22nd season as the women’s head coach. “They are very determined and have made the effort to get better.”
Bahnsen will go with freshman Caroline Martens (Oslo, Norway), sophomores
Kim Meck (Austin, Texas) and Alexis Rather (Tupelo, Miss.), along with
junior Melissa Eaton (Kwazulu Natal, South Africa) and senior Vicky Meyer
(Cotia, Brazil) for her opening tournament lineup.
Rather averaged 75.6 strokes per round over three tournaments in the fall with a 10th place finish at the Chrysler Challenge. Meck, with a 75.8 average in the fall, was the runner-up in the same tournament with a score of 8-over 221 on the par 71 course on rounds of 74-74-73.
Eaton posted two top 20 finished in the fall with a stroke average of 76.3.
LSU comes back to Baton Rouge for its annual spring golf tournament that it will host for the 25th time. The 2006 LSU/Cleveland Golf Classic will be held at the University Club March 3-5 with a strong field of 18 teams taking part in what will be one of the first major tests of the east region’s women’s golf elite. The Tigers are the defending champion in that tournament.