Sept. 15, 2007
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – After capturing a season-opening victory at the Cougar Classic, the Notre Dame women’s golf team will look to notch another win at Louisville’s Napa River Grill Cardinal Cup. The tournament will take place Monday, Sept. 17 and Tuesday, Sept. 18 at the Cardinal Club in Simpsonville, Ky. A field of 17 teams will tee it up for 54 holes of competition.
FORMAT: Each team’s lineup will be comprised of five golfers with the lowest four scores for each round counting towards the overall team score. Monday will feature 36 holes of play beginning with a shotgun start at 8:30 a.m. (ET). Tuesday’s third and final round will also commence with a shotgun start at 8:30 a.m.
FIELD: The University of Louisville will serve as the host for the event. There will be a total of four BIG EAST Conference teams at the tournament. Besides Notre Dame and Louisville, South Florida and Cincinnati will be competing.
The rest of the field is comprised of Augusta State, Coastal Carolina, East Tennessee State, Eastern Kentucky, Georgia State, Illinois State, Middle Tennessee, Missouri State, Maryland, Memphis, Southern Mississippi, Western Carolina and Xavier.
NOTRE DAME LINEUP: Junior Lisa Maunu (St. Thomas, Ontario/Parkside Collegiate Institute), who captured medalist honors at the Cougar Classic, will tee it up from the No. 1 spot in the Fighting Irish lineup. Maunu carded a program-record round of 66 (-6) during the first round of the season-opening tournament en route to registering a school-record three-round total of 210 (-6).
Freshman So-Hyun Park (Seoul, South Korea/Bradenton Prep (FL)) will play from the No. 2 position. Park had a runner-up finish at the Cougar Classic in her collegiate debut. She fired a 54-hole score of 213, which would have been a new school record if not for Maunu’s performance.
Annie Brophy (Spokane, Wash./Gonzaga Prep), a sophomore, occupies the third spot for the Irish. Brophy tied for 27th at the Cougar Classic with a six-over par 222. Her classmate Kristin Wetzel (Middletown, N.Y./Hilton Head Prep (SC)) will play from the No. 4 spot in the Notre Dame lineup. Wetzel opened the 2007-08 campaign with a three-round score of 225 (+9) to finish tied for 42nd. Rounding out the Irish lineup is freshman Katie Conway (Wading River, N.Y./Shoreham-Wading River), who carded a 231 (+15) in her college debut.
LAST TIME OUT: Notre Dame defeated 17 teams, including four top-25 squads, in winning the Cougar Classic (Sept. 9-11) at the Yeamans Hall Golf Club in Hanahan, S.C. The Irish shot a school-record six-over par 870 (287-292-291) during the 54-hole tournament to best No. 14 Tennessee by one shot. Maunu made it a clean sweep for the Irish as she took home medalist honors for the first time of her career. She carded a school-record three-round score of 210 (-6/66-74-70), which included a program record 66 in the first round, to top her teammate Park by three shots. ? The freshman Park had an impressive debut for Notre Dame as she fired a three-under par 213 (70-69-74). Brophy was tied for 27th with a six-over par 222 (75-74-73), while Wetzel finished in a tie for 42nd with a nine-over par 225 (76-75-74) and the freshman Conway completed the Irish scoring with a 231 (78-75-78) to tie for 64th out of the 101-golfer field.
IRISH THOUGHTS: Notre Dame head coach Susan Holt discusses her team’s victory at the Cougar Classic and the upcoming Napa River Grill Cardinal Cup …
“The win was huge because we have big goals for this season and that kind of validated them. Now we just need to keep validating. I told them down at Yeamans (Hall Golf Club) not to worry about beating anyone, they should just worry about beating the course. They shouldn’t worry about what’s going on around them, they should just play the course. That kind of mindset is really starting to set in with them.”
“I got the team together before practice on Friday and told them, again, of how proud and happy I was of them for the win. I also said we need to get our focus back. I told them before the first tournament that we have 30 rounds to play and it’s going to be a long season. We now have 27 rounds to play and we still need to take it one shot at a time, one day at a time and one tournament as a time. We’re all on the same page with that. Last week gave them a big boost of confidence in themselves and each other and they are excited to get out and play again.”
RESULTS: Live scoring of the Napa River Grill Cardinal Cup is available through Golfstat. To access the site go to http://www.golfstatresults.com. Full results will also be posted at uoflsports.com.
NEXT UP: The Irish will take part in the Wolverine Invitational on Sept. 29 & 30 at the University of Michigan Golf Course.
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