University of Georgia Athletics
Georgia Golfers Travel To Stanford Intercollegiate
October 16, 2014 | Women's Golf
ATHENS, Georgia --- The Georgia women's golf team will wrap up the 2014 portion of its schedule this weekend when the Bulldogs compete in the Stanford Intercollegiate on Friday-Sunday.
The field features five top-10 and seven top-20 teams in this week's first edition of the Golfstat rankings. No. 1 Washington headlines the list of participating schools, which also includes No. 3 Stanford, No. 5 Northwestern, No. 6 Southern Cal, No. 8 UCLA, No. 15 Pepperdine, No. 19 UC Davis, Arizona State, California, Clemson, the Bulldogs, Harvard, Iowa State, Kentucky, Oregon, Oregon State and San Jose State.
Georgia's lineup will be juniors Amira Alexander and Manuela Carbajo Ré and sophomores Harang Lee, Sammi Lee and Mary Ellen Shuman.
Harang Lee and Carbajo Ré were exempt from qualifying based on finishing fourth and 13th, respectively, at the Windy City Collegiate Classic two weeks ago. Carbajo Ré currently paces Georgia with a 73.83 stroke average, while Harang Lee boasts a team-high three par-or-better loops in eight rounds this fall.
Sammi Lee and Shuman secured spots in the lineup during qualifying rounds on Monday and Tuesday after missing the last two tournaments. Shuman birdied No. 17 and eagled No. 18 to earn her playing position.
"In a perfect world, you'd love for the whole lineup to be exempt," head coach Josh Brewer said. "If you have five top-15 finishes, you probably won the tournament. But I preach competition. I've done it since day one and I think that's why Sammi and Mary Ellen worked so hard for the past several weeks. I know they're disappointed with only making their second trip of the season, but that carrot of knowing they're going to have a fair chance has kept them working hard and motivated. Now they get their opportunity, and I expect them to go play well."
Sammi Lee played in 11 of 12 tournaments last season and was Georgia's top individual finisher at the 2014 SEC Championships but was the victim of the Bulldogs' depth in missing the past two events.
"I'm so excited to get back out there," she said. "I've missed it so much. I have been working really hard and am excited to play and represent this great place.
"I've been going through some swing changes," Lee added. "We've been working really hard on getting my ball striking back into the place it was late last spring. I've been putting in the time and it just took some time for it to show up on the golf course. I've been playing a lot to get ready. I'm ready now. I'm ready to travel."
Brewer believes a demanding coast-to-coast schedule will benefit his team.
"I think it's important to go across the country and compete," Brewer said. "We'll do that twice this year. We're going to go out West. We're going to play the teams from the Pac 12, which you can say has been the best golf conference over the past decade. We're going see those players and it should give us a good idea of where we stand nationally. We're probably going to see the best teams from East to West this fall and it gives us a good plan for the offseason. You want to play against No. 1- and No. 2-ranked teams in the country if you're not that team. We get that opportunity this weekend."
Carbajo Ré will be competing on the Stanford course for the fourth time in three seasons at Georgia. She finished 12th individually in the Stanford Intercollegiate as a freshman and also traveled to Palo Alto for the 2013 NCAA West Regional and last fall's Intercollegiate.
"We're looking forward to having some revenge with the course because we haven't done as well as we wanted to there," Carbajo Ré said. "We have all the yardage books and the experience and the strategy so I think we've just got to go there and play. Of course, there are going to be some teams we're not used to playing with, but that doesn't matter. If we do the best we can, that's going to be most important to meeting our goal."
"It's a great golf course," Sammi Lee said. "I remember it being challenging but nothing that we can't handle. We've been playing awesome and I think if we take those skills out there we're going to do well."
Live scoring throughout the weekend will be available here.
