Women's Golf preview: PING/ASU Invitational
April 7, 2010
UP NEXT: The Texas Women’s Golf team will head west for the PING/ASU Invitational scheduled for April 9-11 in Tempe, Ariz. The 54-hole stoke-play event will be the Longhorns’ final tune up before competing in the 2010 Big 12 Championship (April 23-25). Tee times will begin at 10 a.m. Central on Friday and Saturday, and 9:30 a.m. on Sunday. LIVE SCORING: Fans can follow the Longhorns in action online at http://www.golfstat.com. COURSE: The ASU Karsten Golf Course will be set up to play at par-72, 6,230-yards. ABOUT THE COURSE: The ASU Karsten Golf Course is a classic Pete Dye, links-style course set in the shadows of ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium. Awarded 4 1/2 stars by the prestigious Golf Digest Rating Panel, this well maintained and challenging design features Dye’s signature mounding and creative bunkering – making proper club selection essential for low scoring. Top PGA and LPGA TOUR professionals such as Phil Mickelson, Billy Mayfair and Grace Park have all sharpened their skills at this premier facility. TEXAS LINEUP: Martha Richards’ will try out the combination of senior Shannon Fish, sophomore Nicole Vandermade and freshmen Desiree Dubreuil, Madison Pressel and Haley Stephens for just the second time this season. The lineup was previously used in the Peg Barnard Invitational and netted a seventh-place showing for the Longhorns in their spring debut. Pressel will appear in the No. 1 position for the fourth time, while Fish is making her highest debut of the year at No. 2. Dubreuil, Vandermade and Stephens will round out the third through fifth positions, respectively.
LEADING THE LONGHORNS: Senior Shannon Fish has paced the Longhorns this season with a team-best scoring average of 73.92 through 13 rounds. Although Fish holds the low average for UT, freshman Madison Pressel accounted for the squad’s lowest round in relation to par and raw score with a 6-under-65 in the opening round of the Stanford Invitational. THE CLOSER: Freshman Madison Pressel sure knows how to make an exit, as she averages a team-best 73.5 strokes per final round. The Boca Raton, Fla., native’s mark in final-round play ranks 39th in the nation. Pressel has recorded UT’s top finish in five events this season, including the first three. LAST TIME OUT: The Texas Women's Golf team (296-306-305=907) carded a final-round 17-over-par 305 at The University of Texas Golf Club and finished the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational (March 26-28) in fifth place at 43-over 907. Senior Shannon Fish (70-78-76=224, +8) and freshman Madison Pressel (72-78-74=224, +8) led UT on the individual leaderboard with 54-hole scores of 8-over-par 224 and tied for 13th place. LAST TIME ON THE ASU KARSTEN GOLF COURSE: To say that the Texas Longhorns have had success on the ASU Karsten Golf Course would be an understatement. Last year, the No. 17-seed University of Texas Women’s Golf team (288-290-295=873, +9) became the highest seed at the 2009 NCAA West Regional Championship (May 7-9) to advance to the NCAA Championship after securing a tie for fourth place with a 7-over 295 in the final round. Then senior Kristin Walla (70-72-73=215, -1) led or co-led UT in each round and recorded a career-best tie for ninth place at 1-under 215. The Aspen, Colo., native carded seven birdies and six bogeys throughout the 54-hole affair en route to her best performance as a Longhorn. AND RICHARDS’ SUCCESS IN TEMPE: On top of Texas’ successes at the ASU Karsten Golf Course, third-year head coach Martha Richards also boasts her own personal achievement in Tempe. A rare two-sport athlete at Stanford (basketball and golf), Richards was the individual medalist at the 1993 PING/ASU Invitational. |
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