BATON ROUGE – The LSU women’s golf team, coming off its best finish ever of third in the NCAA D1 Women’s Golf Championship in May, finds itself highly ranked in the first of the Golf World/National Golf Coaches Association poll announced this week.
LSU is ranked fourth in the opening poll of the season, receiving first place votes of three of the 32 coaches that vote in the poll. Last year, along with the third place finish, LSU had a tournament win at the Mason Rudolph Championships and seven top five finishes. LSU set several records for single round and 54-hole totals during the course of the season.
UCLA is the choice as the defending champion, receiving 22 first-place votes with rival USC second, getting six first-places votes. LSU’s SEC rival Alabama, received one first-place vote but enough total points for third after a second with five wins.
The Southeastern Conference is the well-represented conference with eight teams – Alabama (3), LSU (4), Arkansas (10), Tennessee (11), Vanderbilt (15), Florida (16), Georgia (17) and Auburn (18). The Pac-12 had six teams (with 11 schools that play golf) and ACC four teams in the top 25.
The LSU women open their season on Sept. 11 at the 54-hole Cougar Classic, the first of four tournaments in the fall portion of the season, highlighted by the Mason Rudolph NCAA Fall Preview at the Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tenn. LSU will not only be trying to defend its Mason Rudolph title but will get to play on a course they are very familiar with that will be the site of the 2012 NCAA D1 Women’s Championship next May.
LSU’s home event is March 9-11 at the University Club in Baton Rouge as 18-teams take part in the annual LSU Tiger Golf Classic.
LSU returns three players including defending NCAA D1 Champion, Austin Ernst, who also advanced to the semifinals of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship last month. Also back to lead the charge are two players who have been strong parts of the programs in their first three years at LSU, seniors Jacqueline Hedwall of Sweden and Tessa Teachman of Baton Rouge.
LSU has two transfers with success at their previous schools and one freshman from Sweden that completes the roster that will make this still a very experienced program as Coach Karen Bahnsen enters her 28th season as the head coach of LSU.
Lindsay Gahm comes to LSU after earning Big 10 Freshman of the Year honors at Indiana, while Katrina Hegge had two good seasons for the University of San Francisco. Madeline Sagstrom is LSU’s lone freshman who had an outstanding junior golf career in Sweden, including being a member of the Swedish Junior National Team.
LSU women’s golf can be found on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/LSUwomensgolf and on Twitter @LSUwomensgolf.
Here is the opening Golf World/NGCA Coaches Poll with first place votes in parenthesis and total points:
1. UCLA (22)/707
2. USC (6)/651
3. Alabama (1)/633
4. LSU (3)/554
5. Virginia/483
6. Purdue/482
7. Duke/479
8. Arizona State/458
9. North Carolina/406
10. Arkansas/405
11. Tennessee/401
12. Arizona/389
13. California/385
14. Wake Forest/335
15. Vanderbilt/320
16. Florida/315
17. Georgia/241
18. Auburn/216
19. Michigan State/188
20. Texas A&M/135
21. Stanford/ 133
22. Pepperdine/128
23. Texas/118
24. Tulane/102
25. Notre Dame/97