University of Georgia Athletics
Balanced Bulldogs Begin NCAA Competition At Central Regional
May 09, 2007 | Women's Golf
The No. 3-ranked Georgia women’s golf team opens NCAA play this weekend at the Central Regional in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Bulldogs are the top seed in the 21-team field, fighting for one of eight spots to advance to the NCAA Championships in Daytona Beach, Fla., week after next.
Date: May 10-12
Course: University of Michigan Golf Course
Location: Ann Arbor, Mich.
Par 72; 6,116 Yards
Georgia travels to Michigan riding the positive mojo of a dominating wire-to-wire victory on both the team and individual fronts at the SEC Championships.
The Bulldogs bolted to the head of the pack with a 3-under 285 in the first round at Old Waverly Golf Club, the same West Point, Miss., layout that hosted the 1999 U.S. Women’s Open. That effort gave Georgia a six-stroke edge over the field, a margin the Dogs pushed to eight after the second round and expanded to 16 in the final standings.
Junior Garrett Phillips’ opening 67 put her atop the individual leaderboard. She maintained that status after 36 holes; however, sophomore Taylor Leon surged past her teammate on Sunday with her own 5-under 67.
The Bulldog Lineup
Interim Coach: Vronique Drouin (2nd season at Georgia) Standout collegiate golfer at Kent State
Team Rankings: No. 3 Golfstat; No. 3 Golfweek, No. 3 Golf World
Victorious when it’s most significant
Georgia led wire-to-wire in capturing the team championships at its two most important events of the 2006-07 season to date the Golf Daytona Beach Fall Preview and the SEC Championship.
At the Preview, the Bulldogs carded a 3-under 285 in the final round, their best loop of the tourney, to win by nine. Perhaps most impressive about the showing was the consistency through the lineup. Of the 12 rounds which compiled Georgia’s team score that weekend, 11 tallies were 73 or lower.
Another 285 was critical to the Bulldogs’ championship run at the SECs. That first-round tally gave Georgia an advantage it then expanded during the next two rounds en route to a league-leading 11th conference crown.
Bulldog golfers head “away” for fourth consecutive NCAA Regional
For the first 11 years following the inception of Regional qualifying for the NCAA Championships, Georgia was a regular participant in the East Regional. From 1993-2001 teams selected for NCAA play were divided into just two Regionals East and West and placed solely by geography.
When the Central Regional was introduced in 2002, the NCAA committee began attempting to balance the fields from a competitive standpoint by splitting up the top 15 teams in the nation and placing five of those squads in each Regional. The remaining schools are then generally assigned to the closest possible Regional geographically.
During each of the last four seasons, the Bulldogs have traveled out of their geographic location for Regional play. That quartet of lengthy travel necessities is an indication of something positive the Bulldogs are consistently one of the top-15 teams in the nation.
Georgia competed in 2004-06 West Regionals in Stanford, Calif.; Las Cruces, N.M.; and Auburn, Wash., respectively, before being assigned to this year’s Central Regional.
UGA’s NCAA Championship History
The Bulldogs have long been one of the nation’s premier golf programs.
Georgia has produced 17 top-10 national finishes since 1978-79, including winning the 2001 NCAA Championship.
In addition, three Bulldog golfers have claimed individual national titles. Terri Moody earned medalist honors at the 1981 AIAW Championships, while Cindy Schreyer and Vicki Goetze took home individual crowns from the 1984 and 1992 NCAA Championships, respectively.
Since the NCAA went to a Regional format in 1993, Georgia also won East titles in 1993, 1998 and 1999.
Bulldogs solid against Central foes
Georgia has compiled an impressive 28-5 (.848) record in head-to-head competition in stroke play events this season against teams in the Central Regional field.
Against other Central competition, UGA is: 6-1 vs. Arkansas; 4-1 vs. Vanderbilt; 2-2 vs. Tennessee; 3-0 vs. Kent State; 2-0 vs. Michigan State, Ohio State and SMU; 1-1 vs. Arizona; and 1-0 vs. Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Northwestern, UNC Wilmington and Southern Cal.
In addition, the Bulldogs were 2-1 versus the Central participants they faced at the NGCA Match Play Championships. Georgia defeated Arkansas in the quarterfinals, lost to Vanderbilt in the semifinal round and then topped Michigan State in the third-place match.
Georgia exorcises first-round demons
The Bulldogs’ opening-day effort at the SEC Championships provided a dramatic turnaround from a nasty streak of slow starts during the 2007 calendar year.
Georgia, a team which did not shoot higher than 296 in a dozen rounds in the fall of 2006, carded an average of 303.3 in the first rounds of its first four tournaments of the spring.
The 3-under 285 to begin the SECs was not only the Bulldogs’ best score since the winter break it equaled their second-best relation-to-par effort of the 2006-07 season.
Some time at the top
The Bulldogs spent the majority of the fall and the beginning of the spring at No. 1 in both the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index and the Golfstat national rankings.
Georgia moved atop the national polls after winning the Golf Daytona Beach Fall Preview in September and stayed there through the rest of the 2006 calendar.
The Bulldogs slipped to third after runner-up showings in their first two tournaments of the spring season.
Ironically, the Bulldogs’ worst finish of the campaign was an eighth-place showing in the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic contested on their own UGA Golf Course. Sophomore Taylor Leon was not in the lineup that weekend as she prepared to compete in the Kraft Nabisco Championship, an LPGA Major, the following weekend.
Georgia then tied for sixth at the Bryan National Collegiate before bouncing back to win the SECs.
Leon taking, making cuts at LPGA
Taylor Leon, who has announced her intention to turn professional following the completion of the college season, has made the cut in all three LPGA events
she has worked into her 2006-07 schedule.
Leon shot 70-70-73-73 to finish at 2-under 286 at tie for 47th at the State Farm Classic last September.
Leon carded rounds of 76-77-74-79 to tie for 66th at the Kraft Nabisco Championship in April.
Last weekend, Leon posted rounds of 73-74-74 to tie for 61st at the SemGroup Championship.
In addition, Leon has qualified for the past three U.S. Women’s Opens but missed the cut each year. The closest Leon came to playing through the weekend was in 2004 when she shot back-to-back 75s and fell three shots shy.
SEC provides stiffest competition
An argument can be made annually as to which conference is the strongest in the country. In 2006-07, it would be hard for anyone to contest the depth of the SEC.
Three-fourths of the league that’s nine of 12 for the non-math majors are ranked among the nation’s top-30 in both the latest editions Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index and Golfstat rankings as outlined below.
In fact, the SEC supplies half of the top-10 teams in the latest edition of the Golfstat computer rankings, which were utilized for seeding and placement of NCAA Regionals.
By comparison, the ACC and PAC 10 both sport five top-30 teams, the Mountain West has three such squads, the Big 12 and Big 10 both have two apiece and the Big West, MAC, Sun Belt and West Coast each have one.
Lee youngest medalist ever...we think
Alina Lee became what is believed to be the youngest medalist in women’s collegiate golf history when she tied for top honors at the Lady Puerto Rico Classic in the spring opener.
Lee won the title on Feb. 25 when she was exactly 16 years and seven months old. She will turn 17 on June 25.
Lee carded rounds of 72-72-73 to finish at 1-over 215 along with Valentine Derry of TCU, Pernilla Lindberg of Oklahoma State, Mariana Macias of Auburn and Jenny Suh of Alabama.
Lee has become quite familiar with the term “youngest ever” being associated with her golf career.
Most notably, she became the youngest winner ever of the Western Junior Girls’ Amateur in 2004. Lee defeated Amanda Blumenherst, 2-up, in the championship match just 23 days after she turned 14. The previous youngest winner was a 15-year-old Nancy Lopez.
Lee also utilized a sponsor’s exemption to play in the LPGA’s Asahi Ryokuken International in North Augusta, S.C., when she was 14.
Team average mark in jeopardy
UGA is on pace to break its team average record for the fourth time in the last seven years. The Bulldogs shot a school-record 298.03 on a daily basis en route to winning the 2001 NCAA and SEC Championships. That mark has since been bested three times. UGA’s 2006-07 average of 293.63 is slightly more than two strokes per round better than the current school record of 295.68 set last season.