HONOLULU, Hawaii — The LSU women’s golf team makes its third visit to Hawaii to take part in the Dr. Donnis Thompson Invitational tournament set to begin with 36-holes of play on Tuesday.
The tournament is held over the Kaneohe Klipper Course on the Kaneohe military base in Oahu, a 5,829 yard par-72 course that is ranked as one of the top military courses in the nation. The course is framed on the front nine by mountains and the Pacific coastline spans the back nine where wind and environmentally sensitive areas that are out of play can be big factors in a player’s round.
Joining LSU and the hosts in the tournament are Kansas State, Mercer, New Mexico, Notre Dame, Osaka University of Japan, Princeton, Hawaii-Hilo, Tennessee, UTEP and British Columbia.
In its previous two appearances in Hawaii in 1998 and 2001 the Lady Tigers have two third place showings, but in 1998, then senior Ashley Winn tied the school record for a single round of 68 and would win the individual competition with a then school-record mark of four-under in near perfect weather conditions.
The Lady Tigers are coming off a strong second place finish to top five Auburn in its last event, the LSU/Cleveland Golf Classic. LSU will go with a lineup of Melissa Eaton, the runnerup in the Cleveland Classic, Rebecca Kuhn, freshman Caroline Martens (who performed well as an individual competitor at the University Club), Alexis Rather and the Lady Tigers’ lone senior, Vicky Meyer.
As has been reported in many news outlets, the island of Oahu has been inundated by several inches of rain over the last few weeks, including a heavy rain Sunday that the left the course soaked for Monday’s practice rounds.
“If the weather doesn’t improve, it will be an endurance test, especially on Tuesday,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen. “The team that can be patient and endure will be the most successful. We’ve got to be able to make good shots on a course that will play very long and understand that we can’t compound one bad hole with several others. We played the back nine of the course twice during the practice round and we are hopeful of playing the entire course once the tournament begins.”
The tournament concludes with the final 18 holes on Wednesday.