FRANKLIN, Tenn. – It’s a course that the nationally-ranked LSU women’s golf team is very familiar with in the fall. But it’s a course that they want to be playing on in May 2012 when the Vanderbilt Legends Club hosts the NCAA Division I Championships.
Some of the nation’s top teams tee off Friday in a combination of the yearly Mason Rudolph Championships and the NCAA Fall Preview that is now the Mason Rudolph Fall Preview that will be played over the Vanderbilt Legends Club North Course that will play to a par 72 and 6,451 yards.
LSU is familiar with the course, having won the title last year over Purdue by two shots with a score of 21-under par 843. The Lady Tigers are coming off a strong opening performance, winning the Cougar Classic, with a 16-under total and sophomore Austin Ernst, the defending NCAA D1 Champion, won the third tournament of her career with a school record 54-hole total of 13-under par 203.
A field of 18, including LSU and host Vanderbilt will take part in the three-day event which runs through Sunday. Joining those two teams are Alabama, Arizona, Arizona State, Arkansas, California, Duke, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Purdue, Southern California, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Tulane, (defending national champion) UCLA and Virginia.
LSU will field a slightly different lineup than the first tournament since senior Jacqueline Hedwall is in Ireland caddying for her twin sister Caroline in the Solheim Cup that also is this weekend. So the Lady Tigers will go with Ernst, senior Tessa Teachman (coming off a strong under par performance that had her in a tie for third in the opener), sophomore Lindsay Gahm and freshman Madeline Sagstrom.
Making her LSU debut is Katrina Hegge, a junior who competed the last two seasons for the University of San Francisco, where she earned All-Big West honors.
“This is a great course to host the championships on and we always enjoy coming here for the Mason Rudolph,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen. “We worked hard last year to win and we just need to continue to take each hole and each shot as it comes as we did in the opening tournament and not let a mistake bother us for the rest of the round. We did a good job of that in the first event and now we just need to keep moving forward and continue to improve.”
The tournament begins with tee times set for 8 a.m. CDT on Friday and Saturday and 7:30 a.m. on Sunday. Live scoring for the event can be found at LSUsports.net through Golfstat.com. Follow LSU women’s golf on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/LSUwomensgolf and on Twitter @LSUwomensgolf.