PARRISH, Fla. – The opening spot is very familiar to the LSU Women’s Golf Team as they open the 2011 spring portion of the season Monday with the first two rounds of the Central District Invitational.
The Lady Tigers have opened for the last several years at this event, actually hosted by Michigan State at the River Wilderness Golf Club. There will be a shotgun start at 7 a.m. CST as the teams will play 36 holes on Monday and a final 18 holes on Tuesday.
LSU comes into the spring with one of their best fall seasons in many years led by the play of senior Megan McChrystal, who enters the spring portion of the season as the nation’s No. 1 golfer in the Golfstat Cup and the GolfWeek/Sagarin rankings. In three tournaments, McChrystal has a win and averaged 68.9 strokes per round. Her junior teammate Tessa Teachman averaged 71.3 strokes a round.
LSU finished second in the fall and won the Mason Rudolph Championship against a field of 17 teams. The Lady Tigers finished behind No. 1 Alabama twice, at the NCAA Fall Preview and the Tar Heel Invitational.
In the field with LSU and host Michigan State are Arkansas, Baylor, Indiana, Iowa State, Kent State, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, TCU and Texas A&M.
Rounding out the rest of the LSU lineup are players who also had strong contributions to the LSU fall success – junior Jacqueline Hedwall, sophomore Mary Michael Maggio and freshman Austin Ernst. Maggio averaged 72.3 in the fall, Ernst 72.5 and Hedwall 72.5.
“We are really looking forward to getting the spring season going and getting back on the course,” said LSU Head Women’s Golf Coach Karen Bahnsen. “We did have a good fall season but it is a building process to where we want to be in May. The weather has been great for us in practice and it is great here, so the girls are very excited about opening up (Monday).”
This is the first of four spring events for LSU that includes the return of the LSU Golf Classic to the newly renovated University Club March 11-13. Of course, the event the team hopes to be playing in May is the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship, an event that the Lady Tiger team missed by a stroke a year ago.
Live scoring for the first two rounds can be found on LSUsports.net through Golfstat.com. LSU women’s golf can also be followed on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/LSUwomensgolf.