CARLSBAD, California – On a day when she would be receiving her Master’s degree if she was in Baton Rouge, LSU’s Latanna Stone played an under-par round in the first round of the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championships here Friday at the OMNI La Costa Resort and Spa.
Stone posted a three-birdie round to shoot a 1-under par 71 on the par 72, just under 6,300-yard layout that was hosting its first round of competitive golf after a massive course renovation to the venerable La Costa layout.
Stone birdied the par 4, 365-yard ninth hole to get back to even par on the front side and then birdied par 4 396-yard 13th hole to go with all pars on the final nine holes.
Also shooting 1-under 71 in the opening round was senior Carla Tejedo, who had five birdies in her round (4 on the back nine) and rallied strongly from a double bogey start in her opening hole of the competition.
Stone and Tejedo are T18 in the large field as a total of 37 players shot under par on the opening day.
“I was proud of Carla, the senior, after she got off to a rough start with a double on the first hole and battled back,” said LSU Coach Garrett Runion. “That is what you need out of a senior like that on the biggest stage. Latanna also had a really good under par round today which was very strong as well.”
The Tigers as a team posted a 1-over score of 289 to stand mid-pack in the 30-team tournament in 14th place going into Saturday’s second round. LSU has to be in the top 15 after Sunday’s third round to make the first cut in the tournament.
Scoring is tight after one round with 11 teams under par for the day.
Clemson came out in the morning wave and posted the first-round lead of 8-under par 280 while Texas A&M is second at 7-under 281 with Northwestern, Stanford and Auburn at 3-under par 285 in a tie for third. Duke, Arizona State and San Jose State are tied for sixth at 2-under 286 with Oklahoma State, Florida State and Mississippi State tied for 9th at 1-under par.
“We’re still in the first quarter and hopefully we have three more quarters to go,” said Runion. “We’re in a good spot. We have to turn it around and go out in one of the earlier rounds and we can post something to jump up some. This course tends to lend itself to a lot of birdies and big numbers and we did a good job of keeping the big numbers off the cards. We just made a couple too many bogeys but all-in-all, I felt like it was a good start. It’s more important to keep it going and we’ve got a chance to do that in the morning.”
Saturday’s second round will start about 13 hours after finishing Friday’s round as LSU is in the late-early wave of teams.
The Tigers also counted a 1-over 73 from Ingrid Lindblad and a 2-over round of 74 from Aine Donegan. Lindblad had two birdies on her card and Donegan posted three birdies.
The tournament’s first round on the La Costa course saw the field average around 74.40 for the 156 players.
Lottie Woad of Florida State leads the individual competition at 7-under 65, one shot better than Isabella Rawl of Clemson at 6-under 66. Sophie Linder of Ole Miss was third at 5-under 67.
LSU for the five players is tied for the tournament lead in par three scoring with tournament leader Clemson, but did not have one of their better days on the par 5 holes, posting 2-over.
LSU, Auburn and UCLA will play together again on Saturday starting on No. 10 at 7 a.m. PDT (9 a.m. Baton Rouge time). Live coverage will be available at Golfstat.com and on “X” @LSUwomensgolf and @LSUKent.
NCAA DIVISION I WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIPS
CARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA – OMNI La Costa Resort & Spa
First Round Team Results – Par 288
1 Clemson – 280 -8
2 Texas A&M – 281 -7
T3 Stanford – 285 -3
T3 Auburn – 285 -3
T3 Northwestern – 285 -3
T6 San Jose State – 286 -2
T6 Duke – 286 -2
T6 Arizona State – 286 -2
T9 Mississippi State – 287 -1
T9 Oklahoma State – 287 -1
T9 Florida State – 287 -1
T12 Michigan State – 288 E
T12 Arkansas – 288 E
14 LSU – 289 +1
T15 UCLA – 291 +3
T15 Pepperdine – 291 +3
17 Oregon – 294 +6
T18 Purdue – 295 +7
T18 Wake Forest – 295 +7
20 South Carolina — 296 +8
T21 Ole Miss – 299 +11
T21 Texas — 299 +11
T21 Southern California — 299 + 11
T21 Oregon State – 299 +11
T25 Vanderbilt – 300 +12
T25 Baylor – 300 +12
T27 Virginia – 301 +13
T27 North Carolina – 301 +13
29 SMU – 302 +14
30 Tulsa – 303 +15
Individual Top 10 (Par 72)
1 Lottie Woad, Florida State – 65 -7
2 Isabella Rawl, Clemson – 66 -6
T3 M. Hinson-Tolchard, Oklahoma State – 68 -4
T3 C. Fernandez Garcia-Poggio, Texas A&M – 68 -4
T3 Sophie Linder, Ole Miss – 68 -4
T3 Louisa Carlborn, San Jose State – 68 -4
T3 Adela Cernosek, Texas A&M – 68 -4
T8 Louise Rydqvist, South Carolina – 69 -3
T8 Annabelle Pancake, Clemson – 69 -3
T8 Anna Davis, Auburn – 69 -3
T8 Caroline Canales, UCLA – 69 -3
T8 Phoebe Brinker, Duke – 69 -3
LSU Scores
T18 Latanna Stone – 71 -1
T18 Carla Tejedo – 71 -1
T58 Ingrid Lindblad – 73 +1
T75 Aine Donegan – 74 +2
T116 Taylor Riley – 77 +5