NEW ORLEANS – Two of the toughest women’s golf tournaments of the spring semester are being played in Louisiana according to a recent Golf Digest Report and the No. 4 LSU Lady Tigers will take part in the first of those events beginning Sunday in the Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate at English Turn Country Club.
LSU will host the second of those two tournaments that were ranked as having the second and third toughest tournaments nationally in women’s golf this spring when it hosts the return of the LSU Tiger Golf Classic at the newly renovated University Club, March 11-13.
But for now the focus is on English Turn and a course that LSU and Tulane co-hosted a tournament on last March as the University Club was being remodeled. It was the first tournament the Wave had been involved in as host since before Katrina and the return of the Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate has brought an outstanding talent-laden field.
Eleven of the top 25 teams in Golfstat.com including four of the top five are in the 17-team field which will play 18 holes each day through Tuesday to determine the championship.
The top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide continues to roll with a win already in the spring, with No. 3 USC, No. 4 LSU, No. 5 Duke and No. 6 Purdue ready to do battle. But there are a host of ranked and capable teams looking to move up with the field featuring No. 8 Virginia, No. 11 Vandy, No. 12 North Carolina, No. 14 host team Tulane, No. 17 Tennessee and No. 20 Auburn.
Rounding out the field is Arizona State, a perennial national power that didn’t have enough players to field a team in the fall, along with Denver, Florida, Kentucky, Ole Miss and Texas A&M.
LSU is coming off a second place finish Tuesday in the Central District Invitational a tournament in which freshman Austin Ernst won her first collegiate tournament with a three-under par score of 213 (72-69-72). Ernst is now 39th in the Golfweek rankings but that should go up once her win is figured into the performance rankings. Of course, also in the lineup is No. 1 ranked Megan McChrystal who finished in a tie for third in the Central District event.
McChrystal is the defacto defending champion of the event, having won the Tiger-Wave Golf Classic on the course a year ago. The Stuart, Fla., senior covered a windblown English Turn layout in three-under par shooting a three-under par 69 after two even par rounds of 72. Auburn won the team event with a 25-over par score, seven shots better than TCU.
In all, 24 of the top 50 players in the nation are teeing off in this event.
“It’s a great field, a great event and a wonderful course,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen. “We were excited to host with Tulane a year ago at this first-class venue and now we are happy to be back at a tournament Tulane is hosting. Many of these teams will be back on our course in a couple of weeks so this will be a good indication of the quality of women’s college golf that the fans in our area will get to watch. We struggled closing out rounds earlier this week in Florida, so we have to remain focused from start to finish and see how things turn out for us.”
Live scoring for the event is available at www.LSUsports.net/livestats through www.Golfstat.com. Follow LSU women’s golf on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/LSUwomensgolf and on Twitter @LSUwomensgolf.