BATON ROUGE — The veteran LSU Lady Tiger golf team was voted No. 11 in the preseason Golf World/NGCA Division I Preseason Coaches’ Poll announced Thursday on the eve of the NGCA National Match Play championships that the Lady Tigers will participate in starting on Sunday.
That tournament featuring 16 invited teams will be held in Daytona Beach, Fla., at the LPGA International complex and runs through Tuesday. Following 36 holes of medal play on Sunday, the field will be divided into two eight-team brackets that will then play three matches to determine champions in those brackets.
Despite having four starters back from a team that earned a No.7 ranking in the GolfStat poll and was 12th in the Division I 2009 NCAA Golf Championships a year ago, LSU was four points shy of cracking the top 10 and will have to settle for 11th in the opening poll.
Arizona State, the defending national champions, garnered 34 of the 41 first-place votes in the poll for the top spot with 1,016, 205 points ahead of No. 2 Southern California which received five first-place votes. Third place UCLA earned the other two votes.
Alabama and Auburn from the SEC are picked in the top 10 with the Crimson Tide seventh and Auburn eight. Georgia is 14th, Arkansas 15th, Tennessee 18 and Vanderbilt 21st.
The field for the NGCA Match Play Championships is made up of LSU and top 10 teams Alabama, Auburn, Virginia (9) and Duke (10). The rest of the field is Central Florida, Chattanooga, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Georgia State, Kent State, Ole Miss, North Carolina, South Carolina and TCU.
The preseason Division I Golf World/NGCA Coaches Poll:
1. Arizona State (34), 1,016 points
2. Southern California (5), 911
3. UCLA (2), 909
4. Oklahoma State, 763
5. Denver, 760
6. Wake Forest, 709
7. Alabama, 693
8. Auburn, 684
9. Virginia, 678
10. Duke, 650
11. LSU, 646
12. Purdue, 532
13. Pepperdine, 527
14. Georgia, 455
15. North Carolina, 389
16. Arkansas, 346
17. Arizona, 342
18. Tennessee, 215
19. California, 208
20. Michigan State, 204
21. Vanderbilt, 170
22. Stanford, 167
23. Louisville, 158
24. Kent State, 128