BLYTHEVILLE, S.C. ? The coach of the eighth-ranked Lady Tiger golf team kept using one word in discussing her team’s ability to handle The University Club at Cobblestone Park course that her team will challenge Friday morning in the first round of the Southeastern Conference Women’s Golf Championships.
Patience.
She believes that could be the ingredient that will lead to a good finish come Sunday afternoon in the 54-hole event.
“I think it’s a matter of being patient,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen, coaching the team in her 25th championship event. “They had a lot of rain here on Tuesday and so the golf course is real soft. It’s a matter of keeping your head on straight and being patient. It will be a tough course for a lot of players. You’ve got to play smart. Holes No. 3 and 4 are key hole. I think if you get through those holes in good shape you could be on the way to a good round. You’ve got to stay mentally tough. Everyone is playing the same conditions. It’s a great golf course.”
The third is a 405-yard par four followed by a 150-yard par 3. The front nine will have three-par threes and will play at par 35 as part of a par 71, 6,204-yard layout that concludes each nine with par 5s, including the 531-yard 18-hole.
The 12 SEC teams are here for the renewal of the event with LSU looking to win the event for the first time since 1992, when LSU won in Baton Rouge at Santa Maria. Last year in Loudon, Tenn., LSU made it an upper division finish for the first time in three years with a 56-over par 920 with Florida the runaway winner at 10-over 874.
LSU has had six runnerup finishes in the event since 1996.
The league has three teams in the Golfstat performance top 10 (Alabama-6; Auburn-7; LSU-8), three more in the top 20 (Georgia-14; Arkansas-17; Vanderbilt-18) and five of the remaining six teams are in the top 40 (defending champ Florida-28; Tennessee-29, Ole Miss-38, host South Carolina-40; Kentucky-41). Mississippi State rounds out the field and they are ranked 89th.
Individually, three golfers are in the top 15 nationally in the GolfStat Cup rankings: Candace Schepperle of Auburn at No. 3, sophomore Megan McChrystal of LSU at No. 11 and, No. 15 Dori Carter of Ole Miss. All three certainly are in the talk for SEC Player of the Year with Carter with a tournament win and McChrystal two tournament victories, while Schepperle has averaged 71.92, compared to 72.26 for McChrystal and 72.45 for Carter.
LSU’s lineup will also include the rest of the quintet that captured the second title of the year at the Bryan Park National Collegiate ? senior Caroline Martens, sophomore Amalie Valle and freshmen Tessa Teachman and Jacqueline Headwall.
“I like the attitude of the team,” said Bahnsen. “I don’t think we hit it the greatest (Thursday) in the practice round. But I feel good about them. We’ve got to play real steady and stay in the moment and we’ve certainly been doing that. They are ready and I can tell they are looking forward to the challenge.”
The Tigers enter with what may be one of their best scoring averages as a team in the 30 years of the program, 294.63, and they are better than two shots on average than Alabama (297.05) and Auburn (297.42). The teams are matched based on the finish of the tournament a year ago and Auburn and LSU will be in the same pairing as the 4 and 6 teams of a year ago and will be joined by host Carolina in the first wave that goes off hole number one at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
Weather is predicted to be cool when the event starts but temperatures in the 70s are forecast for all three days with only a 10 percent chance of rain on Sunday.
Live scoring for the event can be found at LSUsports.net courtesy of Golfstat.com.