RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico — The LSU women’s golf team opens its spring season in hopes of good weather at the Lady Puerto Rico Classic beginning here Sunday at the Coco Beach Golf Club.
The three-day, 54-hole event begins on Sunday with single rounds each day through the tournament’s conclusion on Tuesday.
This will be the first of four spring events for LSU, highlighted by the annual LSU/Cleveland Golf Classic set for March 14-16, 2008 at the University Club. The tournament will be preceded by the annual College-Am on March 13 with players from all the teams participating with amateur partners in a fund raiser for LSU golf. Entry information is available through the LSU women’s golf office or at the University Club.
LSU comes into the event ranked No. 27 in the country in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance index is one of nine teams ranked in the 30 in the field that includes No. 6 Arkansas, Georgia (10), host Purdue (11), Tennessee (12), Alabama (16), Kent State (17), LSU (27), South Carolina (28) and TCU (30). Also in the field are Florida State, Iowa State, Michigan, Minnesota, N. C. State, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, UCF and Wisconsin.
The Coco Beach Golf Club and Resort is a 36-hole facility designed by Tom Kite that plays along both mountains and oceans. The Resort will be the site of the first full-field PGA tournament to be held in Puerto Rico next month when the $3.5 million Puerto Rico Open takes place March 17-24.
LSU’s opening tournament lineup will be the five players who are the top five in stroke average after the fall portion of the season. Freshman Amalie Valle averaged 74.7 strokes per round with another freshman, Megan McChrystal, also under 75 for the fall at 74.8. The veterans are also in the starting lineup with junior Caroline Martens (76.2) and seniors Alexis Rather (75.3) and Rebecca Kuhn (76.7).
“We had a good fall,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen of her team. “We learned a lot about our new players and which players were going to step up to the challenge of making the traveling five with several players capable of qualifying to play. This is a nice tournament for us to start in on a challenging course with a field that is a good test for us early. This is the time of the year when we want to start preparing mentally for the journey ahead and hopefully that will take us to good performances down the road at SECs and NCAAs.
“We have four good tournaments that we are playing in a relatively short period so we have to ready for the challenge and of course, we are looking forward to next month and our LSU/Cleveland Golf Classic,” said Bahnsen.