AUBURN, Wash. — LSU senior Meredith Duncan leads the first group down the No. 1 fairway Tuesday morning as the 2002 NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championships get under her at the Washington National Golf Club.
The new home of the University of Washington golf teams will host 24 teams and six individual competitors over 72-holes which runs through Fridayevening. Duncan will tee off at 10 a.m. CDT.
Duncan is there because of her tied for third place finish in the recent NCAA East Women’s Regional at the University Club in Baton Rouge. Her LSU teammates, needing to finish in the top eight to advance as a team, finished 12th, but Duncan as the top score from a non-qualified team, advanced to play the tournament for individual honors only.
For Duncan, it is her fourth appearance in the tournament, making her only the second LSU golfer to appear in the championships all four years of her career. But for the first time for Duncan, she will not have her team members around.
“I really hate that we couldn’t all go together,” said Duncan, ranked eighth in the country in the national college ratings. ” This is a great course and would have been a great tournament for all of us to participate. But I hope to go out and represent LSU well in my final college tournament.”
The Shreveport native comes in averaging 73.14, the second best single season round in school history behind the only four-time championship player for LSU, Katy Harris. Harris, a year ago, had the lead after three rounds and finished third in the national competition.
Duncan, along with teammates Lindy Hitdlebaugh and Brooke Shelton were recently honored by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association on the Louisiana women’s golf team for 2002. Duncan and Hitdlebaugh were named to the first team, while Duncan was honored as the Player of the Year and Shelton was named Freshman of the Year.