LSU's Lindblad In Contention For SEC Women's Golf Title; Tigers Looking To Rally Sunday

BELLEAIR, Florida – LSU’s Ingrid Lindblad put herself in position to check off another box of her fifth year at LSU with her second subpar round in the Southeastern Conference Women’s Golf Championship here Saturday at the Pelican Golf Club.

Lindblad fired a 1-under par 69 on the par 70, 6,150-yard layout to stand in a tie for second at 3-under par 137 after 36 holes of the event. She is just two shots out of what is a star-studded SEC leaderboard topped by Julia Lopez Ramirez of Mississippi State at 5-under 135 (67-68).

Tied for second with Lindblad are Laney Frye of Kentucky (68-69) and Hannah Darling of South Carolina (67-70).

Lindblad is No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings, Ramirez is No. 4 and Darling is No. 14. Frye is ranked No. 59.

Lindblad is trying to follow up a week ago her third top three finish in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur when she fired a 3-under par 69 to finish solo third.

As a team, the No. 4 Tigers find themselves in ninth place after two rounds of play needing to be in the top eight after Sunday’s round to advance to match play. LSU is at 19-over par 579 (285-294), one shot behind eighth place Kentucky (+18) in the final qualifying spot with Vanderbilt two more shots ahead at +16 in seventh.

Arkansas (+14) and Georgia (+12) hold the next two spots in the standings as it appears that eight teams are in the hunt for the final four spots in the match play quarterfinals.

Right behind LSU in 10th is Tennessee at 22 over, followed by Alabama (+23) and Florida (+24).

Lindblad was 2-over par in her round after a bogey on the eighth hole and came to the par 3 ninth hole and nearly delivered the first hole-in-one of the competition. Her tee shot into the 158-yard hole bounced once, glanced up against the flagship and fell down two inches from the hole for a tap-in birdie.

That kick started her round as she birdied the par 4 11th, par 4 13th and the par 4 17th to get to 4-under for the tournament. Her approach on the water guarded 18th hole caught the top of the green and rolled back into the water, but Lindblad did a great job getting up and down for bogey for her 69.

“Ingrid played another solid round (Saturday),” said LSU Coach Garrett Runion. “Two under par rounds and top two, has a chance to win another SEC Championship is pretty cool because that’s why she came back for a fifth year and she’s in position to win it individually and now we need the rest of us to take care of business (Sunday) and make match play as a team.”

Lindblad was second in the 2021 SEC Championship, won the 2022 SEC Championship and was T4 in the 2023 SEC event. Ramirez is the defending champion of the event.

No team in the 14-team league broke par on the second day that featured some difficult pin placements on the large old-school green complexes. Georgia made the big move, jumping up seven spots from 12th to fifth with a 1-over par round of 281.

Four teams – South Carolina at -3 557, Texas A&M even par 560, Auburn +2 562 and Mississippi State 8-over 568 appear to be safe to advance entering the final round.

LSU finished with a 14-over par score of 294 to stand at 19-over 579. Along with Lindblad’s 69, the Tigers posted a 3-over 73 from Carla Tejedo, a 5-over 75 from Taylor Riley and 7-over 77s from Latanna Stone and Aine Donegan.

The field stroke average on Saturday was 73.21 about three-quarters of a stroke higher than the opening round on Friday. Lindblad is third in the field in par 4 scoring at 2-under par. She has seven birdies through the two rounds which goes with 25 pars in the first 36 holes.

The Tigers will be in the second wave off the back nine on the final day and both the team and Lindblad will have some idea of scoring pace as Ramirez, Darling and Frye will all be on the course at minimum 50 minutes ahead of Lindblad’s 9:50 ET tee time.

Mississippi State and Georgia will begin their wave at 8:20 a.m. ET with Arkansas, Vanderbilt and Kentucky beginning at 8:50 a.m. ET. The LSU wave with Tennessee and Alabama will begin at 9:10 a.m. ET. LSU will play the difficult 18th hole on its first nine of the day and will close with the par 3 ninth hole as their final hole of the day.

“We have had to chase in the past so we know what we have to do,” said Runion.

Live scoring can be found at Golfstat.com. Reports on “X” from the course will be available @LSUKent and @LSUWomensGolf.

SEC WOMEN’S GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS
Belleair, Florida – Pelican Golf Club
Second Round Team Results (Par 280-560)
(Top 8 teams after Sunday’s round advance to match play)
1 South Carolina – 275-282 — 557 -3
2 Texas A&M – 279-281 — 560 E
3 Auburn – 279-283 — 562 +2
4 Mississippi State – 280-288 — 568 +8
5 Georgia – 291-281 — 572 +12
6 Arkansas – 282-292 — 574 +14
7 Vanderbilt – 288-288 — 576 +16
8 Kentucky – 286-292 — 578 +18
9 LSU – 285-294 — 579 +19
10 Tennessee – 300-282 — 582 +22
11 Alabama – 290-293 — 583 +23
12 Florida – 288-296 — 584 +24
13 Ole Miss – 286-303 — 589 +29
14 Missouri – 304-299 — 603 +43

Individual Top 10 (Par 70-140)
1 Julia Lopez Ramirez, Mississippi State – 67-68 135 -5
T2 Hannah Darling, South Carolina – 67-70 137 -3
T2 Ingrid Lindblad, LSU – 68-69 — 137 -3
T2 Laney Frye, Kentucky – 68-69 — 137 -3
T5 Louise Rydqvist, South Carolina — 68-70 — 138 -2
T5 Anna Davis, Auburn – 69-69 — 138 -2
T5 Napata Lertsadwattana, Georgia – 72-66 — 138 -2
T8 Adela Cernousek, Texas A&M – 69-70 — 139 -1
T8 Cayetana Fernandez Garcia-Poggio, Texas A&M – 66-73 — 139 -1
T8 Kendall Todd, Arkansas – 67-72 — 139 -1
T8 Virginie Ding, Vanderbilt – 69-70 — 139 -1
T8 Savannah De Bock, Georgia – 69-70 — 139 -1

LSU Scores
T2 Ingrid Lindblad – 68-69 – 137 -3
T24 Taylor Riley – 69-75 – 144 +4
T49 Carla Tejedo – 76-73 – 149 +9
T58 Latanna Stone – 74-77 – 151 +11
T58 Aine Donegan – 74-77 – 151 +11