BATON ROUGE – Two of LSU’s all-time best golfers have received the envelope that contains their invitation to the 2024 Augusta National Women’s Amateur, set for Augusta, Georgia, April 3-6.
Graduate students Ingrid Lindblad and Latanna Stone will represent the Tigers from a field of 72 players announced Wednesday that will compete for the chance to hold the winner’s trophy in Butler Cabin at Augusta National Golf Club at the conclusion of the final round.
Each of the top 43 eligible amateurs in the final World Amateur Golf Ranking of 2023 have accepted invitations to the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Players representing 18 countries and six continents will compete, including two of the last three champions, Tsubasa Kajitani (2021) and Anna Davis (2022),
Lindblad was first invited in 2020 but the tournament was canceled because of the COVID pandemic. Lindblad will be making her fourth actual appearance having been invited in 2021, 2022, 2023 and now 2024.
Lindblad, from Sweden, was the runner-up in 2022 and in 2021 was one-stroke out of the playoff to decide the championship. Her final round 68 in 2022 was the low round of the 2022 championships and included eagles at No. 8 and the famed par 5 15th.
The World No. 1 Amateur, who has held the position for the last 36 weeks, is coming off a solo second-place finish on Tuesday in the Puerto Rico Championship, closing with a 4-under 68 to finish at 9-under par 207. Lindblad has won a school record 13 times and has 37 top 10 finishes in 43 starts at LSU.
During the football season, she was honored on the field at Tiger Stadium with the United States Golf Association’s McCormack Medal signifying her rise as the game’s top women’s amateur golfer.
Stone, a native of Riverview, Florida, first appeared at Augusta National in the inaugural Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals at the club in 2014. In 2022, in her first ANWA experience, she shared the 36-hole lead and finished in a tie for second with teammate Lindblad in a solid performance at Augusta National.
In 2023 she posted even par 72s each day at Champions Retreat and then in a weather-delayed final round at Augusta National posted a third round of 72 to finish in solo eighth against the stellar field.
Stone has played against the best in the world, representing the United States three times in the Arnold Palmer Cup, the winning United States 2022 Curtis Cup team and reaching the championship match this past summer in the United States Women’s Amateur.
Stone is ranked 21 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings and Stone and Lindblad have helped lead the Tigers to the NCAA Championships each of the last three seasons. She scored a win in the Illini Women’s Championship at the famed Medinah Country Club in the fall.
Also getting an invitation from Augusta is LSU signee Rocio Tejedo, the younger sister of LSU senior golfer Carla Tejedo.
In 2023, Tejedo, No. 12 in the world rankings, won five World Amateur Golf Ranking events, including both the Portuguese Women’s Amateur and the German Girls’ Open.
Also last year, she reached the quarterfinals of the R&A Girls’ Amateur, finished T-6 in the European Ladies’ Amateur in Sweden and was a member of winning European teams in both the Junior Solheim Cup in Spain and Junior Ryder Cup in Italy.
The Augusta National Women’s Amateur, which has hosted the top women amateurs in golf since 2019, will celebrate its fifth anniversary in 2024. The inaugural edition was won by future major champion Jennifer Kupcho in 2019, while the 2020 Championship was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kajitani kickstarted a historic April in 2021, capturing the first title for Japan at Augusta National eight days prior to Hideki Matsuyama’s win at the Masters Tournament. In 2022, 16-year-old Davis became the event’s youngest winner after a final-round 69. The fourth edition in 2023 provided another compelling storyline as Rose Zhang, the top-ranked amateur in the world for nearly three years, put a bow on her amateur career with a playoff victory at Augusta National.
The players will have a practice round at Champions Retreat in Augusta on April 2 before the first two rounds of the tournament are played on the Bluff and Island nines April 3 and 4. The top 30 and ties will advance to Augusta National for the final round on April 6. The entire field will get to play a practice round on April 5.
The Golf Channel (first two rounds) and NBC/Peacock will have the television coverage of the event.