WILMINGTON, N.C. — The LSU women’s golf team looks to finish the fall portion of its season on a positive note this weekend, but they will face one of the strongest fields in the country beginning here Friday in the eighth Landfall Tradition which is also serving as the NCAA Fall Preview.
The Landfall’s Pete Dye Course will also host the 2010 NCAA Women’s Golf Championship next May. The course will play to 6,325 yards and a par of 72 for the 54-hole stroke play event that runs through Sunday.
LSU is one of eight teams making their debut in the tournament. Two-time defending champion Wake Forest will defend its crown in the event. Along with host UNC-Wilmington, the field also includes defending NCAA champion Arizona State, Alabama, Auburn, Denver, Duke, Georgia, Michigan State, New Mexico, UNC Chapel Hill, Oklahoma State, Pepperdine, Purdue, Southern Cal, UCLA and Virginia.
Wake Forest’s total of 880 won the event a year ago by a total of 28-strokes over Ohio State.
The Lady Tigers are playing just a week after an 11th-place finish in the Mercedes-Benz Women’s Championship in Knoxville, an event in which the Lady Tigers played without both Tessa Teachman and Megan McChrystal who were out with the flu.
McChrystal, a second-team All-American a year ago, returns and will be joined by four of the players who were in the Mercedes-Benz lineup ? freshman Mary Michael Maggio and juniors Amalie Valle, Lindy LaBauve and Abby Oberthier. LaBauve and Oberthier came in to the lineup in Knoxville and came up with good performances to help the team.
“This is going to be a good test for us,” said LSU women’s golf coach Karen Bahnsen. “We will learn a lot about the course we plan to play on next May and we hope to finish our fall portion of the season on a good note. We won’t have Tessa (Teachman) for this event, but that’s okay. We want her healthy and at her best for the spring.”
The combined field, including LSU’s win in the NGCA Match Play, has won 10 tournaments this fall and seven individual championships since the fall season began last month.
The event begins Friday at 7:30 a.m. and hole-by-hole scoring for the event will be available on LSUsports.net through golfstat.com.