WEST POINT, Miss. — LSU women’s golf coach Karen Bahnsen proclaimed her 25th-ranked women’s golf team ready to go Wednesday afternoon after the practice round for the annual Southeastern Conference Women’s Championship that begin here Friday morning at the Ole Waverly Golf Club.
This week, Bahnsen also has brought out the mantra she talked to her team about before their impressive performance a year ago in the NCAA Regionals. With nine of 12 teams ranked in the top 28 in the Sagarin/Golfweek Performance Rankings, Bahnsen is telling anyone who will listen, “Why not us?”
“This is a strong event,” said Bahnsen, the dean of SEC women’s golf coaches in her 23rd year as the Lady Tigers head coach. “Our conference is unbelievably strong. It’s just a matter of who is on this week and anybody could be us and I want it to be us. It’s just a matter of overcoming a few mental blocks. I feel we are ready.
“We are just so close to playing well and breaking through. We feel why not us. We are that close to getting on one of those rolls that we did last year.”
The 12 teams had the opportunity to get a look at the 6,300-yard course that hosted the 1999 United States Women’s Open, the 2006 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur and last hosted the SEC Women’s Tournament in 1994.
That tournament 13 years ago may give us an indication as to what to expect in what should be near perfect conditions as Georgia posted a winning score that year of 26-over 890 and Katharina Larsson of Tennessee finished at seven under 209.
“Old Waverly is a championship course and it is awesome,” Bahnsen said.
LSU has a bit of home area help this weekend as junior Alexis Rather has played the course several times as she hails from nearby Tupelo and her advice proved very helpful to the team as the other four players saw it for the first time.
“I’ve very excited about that SECs being here. It’s the first time I am getting the chance to play an event for LSU in Mississippi. The course is in wonderful shape and we are looking forward to having a good weekend,” Rather said.
Georgia is the highest ranked team entering the event in third in the Golfweek rankings, with Auburn fifth, Vanderbilt seventh, Florida at NO. 10, Tennessee 13, with Arkansas 24, LSU 25, Alabama 26 and South Carolina 28.
The teams are grouped for the first round as they finished so Auburn, the two-time defending champions, will be paired with Tennessee (2nd a year ago) and Georgia (3rd). LSU was seventh a year ago and will be paired with South Carolina and Alabama.
The three teams are all right together in the rankings so a very good week for one of them could help them with a better seeding in the NCAA Regionals that will be announced on Monday, April 30. The winner of the SEC Championships receives an automatic invitation to the NCAA Regionals.
LSU, expecting to get in at worst as an at-large qualifier, is hosting the NCAA East Regional, May 10-12, at the University Club in Baton Rouge.
The first round begins off both the first and 10th tees at 8:30 a.m. with LSU, South Carolina and Alabama to go in the final wave off the back nine at 9:30 a.m. Live scoring for the SEC Women’s Golf Championships can be found at www.golfstat.com.
The start could be a big thing for LSU as teams starting on the 10th hole face a long-treacherous 500-plus yard par 5 following by a lengthy 385 par four that will need a precise shot off the team. Teams that can get through that stretch to open the round without a lot of over par numbers could be on the way to a good round.