April 8, 2010
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The Fighting Irish women’s golf team is set to close out their regular season slate at the SunTrust Gator Women’s Golf Invitational on April 10-11 in Gainesville, Fla. The two-day event will be hosted by the University of Florida at the Mark Bostick Golf Course.
On Saturday, April 10 rounds one and two (36 holes) will be played beginning with an 8:00 a.m. shotgun start. Sunday’s final round will also begin with an 8:00 a.m. shotgun start. The tournament will serve as Notre Dame’s final tune-up before the 2010 BIG EAST Championship.
“I think playing in Florida on Bermuda greens will give us some much needed practice on similar type greens we will find next week at the Innisbrook Resort, site of the BIG EAST Championship,” said head coach Susan Holt. “Several BIG EAST teams will be playing this weekend which will give us a chance to see how we match up.”
The SunTrust Gator Women’s Golf Invitational will feature a field of 15 teams including (golfstat rankings as of 4.7.10 in parentheses) Chattanooga (38), Florida Atlantic (144), Florida International, Florida State (24), Florida (18), Furman (45), Georgetown (145), Georgia State (44), Michigan State (12), UNC-Greensboro (75), Nebraska, Notre Dame (40), South Florida (76), Texas A&M (23) and UCF (61).
“The field is pretty good,” assessed Holt. “We will have a chance to face Florida, Florida State, Michigan State and Texas A&M, which are all teams in the top 25. Beating any of those teams would give us a real boost of confidence.”
The Notre Dame lineup will be comprised of Irish senior co-captains Annie Brophy (Spokane, Wash./Gonzaga Prep) and Kristin Wetzel (Middletown, N.Y./Hilton Head Prep School), juniors Katie Conway (Wading River, N.Y./Shoreham-Wading River) and So-Hyun Park (Seoul, South Korea/Bradenton/Preparatory Academy) and sophomore Becca Huffer (Denver, Colo./Littleton).
“We are still looking to get consistent scores that reflect the talent of our players,” said Holt. “We have yet to do this for three straight rounds this spring, which is very frustrating when you know what our players are capable of. We need to show up and execute shots; we have the ability but we are just not getting it done.
Our play has been very sloppy at times and we need to do the little things better like converting up and downs, hitting the ball closer to the pin from 100 yards and in, and avoid three putts in an effort to get our scores down,” added Holt.
The Irish most recently finished in 11th (out of 17 teams) after firing a final round 317 (+29) at the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational, which concluded on March 28 at The University of Texas Golf Club in Austin, Texas. Brophy led the way for the Irish after concluding the tournament with a final round five-over par 77, earning a share of 26th in the 90-member playing field.
Live hole-by-hole scoring of the 2010 SunTrust Gator Women’s Golf Invitational will be available through Golfstat. To access the site, visit http://www.golfstatresults.com or click on the Live Stats tab on the right-hand side of the Notre Dame women’s golf schedule page on und.com. Daily recaps will also be posted on und.com.
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