BATON ROUGE — Five of the nation’s top 20 women’s golf tee will try to get started on what is scheduled to be the 28th annual LSU Golf Classic beginning Friday morning at the University Club.
Included in that group are the LSU Lady Tigers, now ranked No. 9 in the country in the Golfstat performance rankings and the Lady Tigers will be a part of Friday’s final featured wave that includes No. 11 Wake Forest and No. 12 North Carolina.
Also in the field are the third-ranked Virginia Cavaliers and No. 17 Louisville.
In all 18 teams will take part in the three-day event that runs through Sunday at the local home of LSU golf. Admission is free.
“It’s a very good field,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen, who is hosting the event for the 10th time at the University Club. “This is as good a test of women’s golf as there is and it comes at a perfect time when a lot of these teams are playing at their best. We look forward to hopefully being able to get in there and make a run for the championship.”
Joining the ranked teams in the event are Arkansas, College of Charleston, Colorado, Furman, Kentucky, Louisville, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Notre Dame, North Carolina State, North Carolina Wilmington, South Carolina and TCU.
LSU’s attempt to win its fourth at the U-Club and its eighth overall since the tournament began in 1982 will take a little different look as sophomore Megan McChrystal is going to be held out of the lineup by Coach Bahnsen because of illness that she played through during the UCF Challenge earlier in the week in Florida.
“I know she probably wants to be out there badly,” Bahnsen said of McChrystal, who last month won LSU’s first individual title in a tournament since 2002. “But we need her at full strength as we go through the rest of the schedules and the SECs and NCAAs so there is no way we would risk her playing in the condition she is in.”
So that brings Nicole Crochet back into the LSU lineup and she will be joined by the four Lady Tigers who have played the first two events of the season ? senior Caroline Martens, Tessa Teachman, Jacqueline Hedwall and Amalie Valle. Abby Obertheir, Lindy LaBauve and Mary Michael Burns will play as individual competitors in the tournament.
Florida State is not back to defend their title but it has taken a score in the range of 8-15 over par to win three of the last four years and FSU was 20-over last year in winning. North Carolina won the 2004 title with the second highest winning scoring in the U-Club events, 903. The last five winners of the individual title have been under par.
The teams had practice rounds in the morning and then several of the top players participated in the annual college-am which again drew a full field as part of the fund-raising efforts for the LSU women’s golf program.
“It’s a fun weekend and there are host families for all the teams,” said Coach Bahnsen. “Many of the host families and volunteers have been a part of the event since the old days at Fairwood Country Club. We look forward to some exciting and we hope a lot of people will come out and support our Lady Tigers.”
There is a concern regarding weather on the opening day and at mid-afternoon Thursday the event was changed to a shotgun start to try to get the round in despite a 70 percent chance of rain. The shotgun start is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. but with daylight savings time it is possible that the round could start at late as 1 p.m. and still get finished by the end of the day.
Live scoring is available at LSUsports.net. through golfstatresults.com.