BATON ROUGE – Two members of the LSU women’s golf team tee off Tuesday in one of America’s most famous amateur events, the 126th United States Women’s Amateur at The Honors Course in Ooltewah, Tennessee, near Chattanooga.
Ryleigh Knaub, who had a very good freshman season at LSU in 2025-26, and incoming freshman Raegan Denton will take part in the first of two stroke play rounds on Tuesday that will determine the top 64 players that will advance to match play, beginning on Thursday.
A total of 1,422 entries were accepted for the event and after invitees and qualifying events, the field is set at 156 competitors that will tackle the par 72, 6,539-yard venue which was designed by the legendary Pete Dye and opened in 1983.
Knaub had three top 10s for the Tigers as a freshman in helping the team make its sixth consecutive NCAA championship appearance in 2026. That including a fourth in the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate with three rounds of 1-under 70 and a T3 finish in the ULM Invitational with three consecutive rounds of 3-under 69. She averaged 72.22 for 27 rounds this past year.
The Debary, Florida golfer was T3 earlier in the summer in the North South Women’s Amateur and advanced through qualifying to earn a spot in the event.
Denton has traveled through most of the United States and Canada this summer playing in some of the top amateur events in preparation for the women’s amateur and that included a victory in the Pacific Northwest Women’s Amateur Championship last month.
She also had top 10 finishes in the Western Amateur (T9), the North South (T17) and the Women’s Southern Georgia Amateur (third). In April she finished fourth in her first appearance in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship. She enters the U.S. Women’s Amateur ranked 47th in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.
LSU players have had success in the Women’s Amateur with Shreveport’s Meredith Duncan capturing the Robert Cox Trophy in a tense win on the first extra hole in the 2001 event in Wichita, Kansas. Austin Ernst was a semifinalist in the 2011 Women’s Amateur and most recently, Latanna Stone, advanced all the way to the final match in 2023.
Both Denton and Knaub will tee off right around Noon CT on Tuesday in the opening round with Denton off the first tee at 11:51 a.m. CT and Knaub off the 10th tee at 12:01 p.m.
Television coverage of the event begins on Thursday with coverage of the round of 64-matches on The Golf Channel at 10 a.m. CT. The 36-hole championship match with set for Sunday.