NOTRE DAME, Ind. — The LSU women’s golf team begins what it hopes will be a three-day process that will send them to the national championship tournament when it begins play here Thursday in the NCAA Central Regional at the Warren Golf Course.
The tournament is one of three regionals for women’s golf that begin on Thursday with the top eight teams in each regional advancing to the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championships at Bryan, Texas, May 18-21.
The appearance in the regional is the 17th since the regional format started in 1993. Since the regional format started in 1993, LSU has advanced from regionals to the women’s championship a total of eight times.
LSU is the third seed in a field of 24 in the Central Regional. The field in seed order is: UCLA, Duke, LSU, Arkansas, Wake Forest, Texas, Tulane, Stanford, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Kent State, Chattanooga, Northwestern, Minnesota, UNLV, Oklahoma State, North Texas, Wisconsin, East Carolina, Michigan, Illinois, Morehead State, Illinois State and Butler.
The Lady Tigers will play with top seeds UCLA and Duke in the first two rounds, playing in the morning wave on Thursday and the afternoon wave on Friday. LSU will go off in the second wave in the morning beginning at 8:06 CDT.
LSU is ranked No. 8 in the latest poll of the National Golf Coaches Association that came out with UCLA No. 1 in the country and Duke at No. 5.
The Warren Golf Course opened in 1999 and will play at par 72 and 6,208 yards for the regional.
The LSU team went through their practice round on the course on Wednesday although the start of the practice session was delayed by an hour frost delay.
“It’s a great golf course,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen. “It is playing long. It’s a course that will reward good shots. The team worked hard (Wednesday) in their practice round and that’s good. We want to go take care of our business and the first step was a good practice round (Wednesday).”
LSU will go with the same lineup that finished third in the Southeastern Conference Championships, the team’s best finish in that event since 2004 led by All-SEC selections senior Megan McChrystal and freshman Austin Ernst.
McChrystal, working on another record season, comes in averaging 71.9 strokes on the season. The Stuart, Fla., native earned All-SEC honors with the second best stroke average in the league and she currently is fifth in the country in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings. McChrystal has had six top five finishes in eight events this year, including a win at the Mason Rudolph event in Nashville.
Ernst, who earned second-team All-SEC honors, won the title in the Central District Invitational with a three-under total of 213, becoming the first LSU freshman to win an event since 2000. She averaged 73.8 strokes a round and is 34th in the nation in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings.
The rest of the LSU lineup includes junior Jacqueline Hedwall (74.5 stroke average), junior Tessa Teachman (74.6 stroke average) and senior Amalie Valle (76.5 stroke average).
Only Ernst has not appeared in an NCAA regional before with Teachman and Valle making their third starts and Hedwall her second. McChrystal will be making her fourth NCAA start.
One main concern for the field may be the weather as cool low-60s temperatures are predicted as well as possible rain in the forecast for the second and third rounds.
“The weather is going to do what it is going to do,” Bahnsen said. “Hopefully, we’ll catch the good side of the weather and do what we need to do to qualify for the next round.”
LSU is trying to go back to the Championships for the third time in the last four years after missing the 2010 championship by just one shot.
The 54-hole tournament concludes on Saturday. 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.