BATON ROUGE – It’s an LSU party of sorts when the 79th United States Women’s Open tees off on Thursday at Lancaster Country Club in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The course is playing host to the women’s open for the second time, the first in 2015. The course opened in 1920, created by Architect William Flynn, with modern renovations by Ron Forse and Jim Nagle.
Three prominent members of the 2023-24 LSU team that finished No. 3 in the NCAA rankings and T5 with their first match play appearance in the recent NCAA Championships in Carlsbad, California will be in action – Aine Donegan, Ingrid Lindblad and Latanna Stone. They are part of 21 amateurs competing in the 156-player field in the 72-hole stroke play event.
Also participating is 2015 All-American and SEC Player of the Year, Madelene Sagstrom from the LPGA tour.
Donegan, who will be a rising senior on the LSU team in 2024-25, is hoping 2024 at the Open is as good as 2023. After qualifying for the Open on a whim, she posted rounds of 69-76-75-77 to shoot 9-over 297 to finish T45, one shot off low amateur. She was one of just four amateurs to make the cut at historic Pebble Beach.
Along the way she became a fan favorite at Pebble Beach for her gregarious nature and interaction with fans garnered attention from the local and national media covering the event.
This year, she went the qualifying round again, finishing first in a Rockwall, Texas qualifying round to advance to her second Open.
The native of Ireland enters off her best finish of the season at the NCAA Championships when she finished T4 with a 5-under score of 287 off rounds of 74-67-71-71. In her 67 she had a clean 5-birdie card.
Lindblad, who earlier Wednesday was named the WGCA Player of the Year, also received the ANNIKA Award voted on by players, coaches and media at the NCAA Championships. She received an exemption into the tournament by virtue of being the winner of the 2023 Mark H. McCormack Medal for being the No. 1 player in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Rankings.
This is her 52nd week as world No. 1.
She is returning to the Open for a second time after posting a top 10 finish at Pine Needles in 2022 after an opening round 65, the lowest 18-hole score by an amateur in championship history. Just as in 2022, 26-time professional winner Sophie Gustafson of Sweden will be on the bag as Lindblad’s caddy for the event.
Lindblad posted 15 career college wins, the most in Southeastern Conference history, and had four wins this past season, including the NCAA Bryan Regional. She has three top three finishes in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and in 2021 won the European Ladies Amateur and led Sweden to victory in the Women’s World Amateur Team Championship in France.
Stone concluded her illustrious five-year LSU career with a T10 finish and a spot on the All-Championship team at the NCAA Championships as LSU tied for the stroke play qualifying lead, shooting even par 288 (71-73-73-71).
She will be making her first U.S. Women’s Open start by finishing as the runner-up in the 2023 U.S Women’s Amateur. Stone, from Riverview, Florida, was a member of the victorious 202 USA Curtis Cup team, and will be a part of the United States team at the Palmer Cup in July which is under the direction of LSU’s Women’s Head Coach Garrett Runion.
Stone qualified for the 2012 U. S. Women’s Amateur at the age of 10, which at the time was a record. She has competed in six U.S. Amateurs. She was T2 in the 2022 Augusta National Women’s Amateur and solo eighth in the 2023 edition.
She was named an honorable mention All-American by the WGCA and is ranked No. 35 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.
Sagstrom, 31, from Uppsala, Sweden, has three Epson Tour wins and one win on the LPGA tour. She recently shot 22-under par to finish second in a tournament in New Jersey that pushed her past $4 million in career LPGA earnings.
Sagstrom’s best finish in the Open is T17 in 2018. This will be her eighth appearance in the championship.
Three of the LSU players will go off in the morning wave on Thursday with Donegan off at 6:29 a.m. CT with Lindblad at 7:02 and Sagstrom at 8:13 a.m. Stone will tee off in the afternoon at 12:36 p.m.
Live scoring can be found at uswomensopen.com. Television coverage for the first two rounds will be on Peacock (11 a.m. to 1 p.m. CT) and USA Network from 1-7 p.m. CT. Featured groups will also be available at uswomensopen.com, the USGA App and Peacock.
Dan Hicks, Grant Boone and Tom Abbott will handle the hole-by-hole coverage with Morgan Pressel and Karen Stupples the booth analysts.