SOUTHERN PINES, N. C. – LSU junior golfer Meredith Duncan, fresh off being named second-team All-American earlier in the week, tees off Thursday in the first round of the United States Women’s Open golf championships.
The 72-hole event is being held this year at the Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club, a Donald Ross designed course which opened in 1977. The 56th Women’s Open championship was last conducted at Pine Needles in 1996 and was won by Annika Sorenstam.
Duncan is ranked 21st in the final College Golf Foundation national rankings for this past season and she remains the nation’s seventh-ranked women’s amateur according to GolfWeek. She qualified for the Open finishing second in sectional qualifying in Dallas, Texas, earlier this month.
The Shreveport native will tee off Thursday at 11:50 a.m. CDT with Marianne Morris of Middletown, Ohio, and Eve Lux of Highland, N.Y. The same threesome will be paired together in the second round on Friday at 6:50 a.m. CDT.
Duncan is one of three LSU golfers who will be taking part in this year’s Women’s Open joining LPGA tour winners Jenny Lidback and Jackie Gallagher-Smith.