March 18, 2009
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The women’s golf team returns to action at the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational on March 20-22. The three-day tournament will take place at the University of Texas Golf Club in Austin, Texas. The course is a par-72 and stands at 6,324 yards in length.
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. The tournament will consist of 54 holes featuring one 18-hole round of play on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Play on Friday and Saturday will begin at 8:15 a.m. (CST) with a split-tee start, while Sunday will begin with an 8:45 (CST) shotgun start.
FIELD: A field of 17 teams will take to the greens at the University of Texas Golf Club. The teams participating include (Golfstat.com rankings in parentheses): Arizona (1), Duke (9), Vanderbilt (13), Purdue (14), Arizona State (20), Arkansas (22), Notre Dame (26), New Mexico (34), Texas A&M (35), UCF (42), Furman (44), South Carolina (46), Chattanooga (51), Texas (55), Tulsa (56), Florida State (57) and Oklahoma (66).
NOTRE DAME LINEUP: The five players comprising the Irish lineup include senior captain Lisa Maunu (St. Thomas, Ontario/Parkside Collegiate Institute), junior Annie Brophy (Spokane, Wash./Gonzaga Prep), sophomores So-Hyun Park (Seoul, South Korea/Bradenton Prep) and Katie Conway (Wading River, N.Y./Shoreham-Wading River) as well as freshman Becca Huffer (Denver, Colo./Littleton HS).
NOTRE DAME IN THE BETSY RAWLS: 2009 marks the third consecutive year in which the Irish will take part in the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational. In 2007, Notre Dame finished eighth (out of 15 teams), as the Irish shot a 937. Noriko Nakazaki was Notre Dame’s best finisher, as she ended up in a tie for sixth place (223). Then, in 2008 Notre Dame finished in a tie for fifth place (out of 18 teams) with a three-round score of 642. Park was Notre Dame’s top finisher as her 156 placed her in a tie for seventh.
LAST TIME OUT: The Notre Dame women’s golf team finished in 12th place at the 2009 Louisiana State University Golf Classic in Baton Rouge, La. On March 15. Freshman Becca Huffer (Denver, Colo./Littleton HS), sophomore All-American So-Hyun Park and senior captain Lisa Maunu (St. Thomas, Ontario/Parkside Collegiate Institute) each carded minus-one (71) scores in the third round of play at the LSU golf club, helping the Irish card a final round score of 288.
The team score of 288 in round three ties for the fourth-lowest round in program history and marks the third time this season Notre Dame has fired a 288. Sunday also marked just the second time this season in which three Irish players notched below-par rounds, with the only other occasion coming on September 29 when the Irish shot a record-low 281 at the Heather Farr Memorial.
Huffer, who was Notre Dame’s highest finisher, concluded the LSU Classic at plus-one (217), putting her in a 16th-place tie. On Sunday she recorded birdies at the 14th and 16th holes and added 15 pars. All told, she recorded a minus-two mark on the tournament’s 12 par-fives. It was Huffer’s second under-par round as a member of the Irish, with her first (also a minus-one 71) coming on the final day of play at the Mary Fossum Invitational in late September.
RESULTS: Live hole-by-hole scoring of the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational will available through Golfstat. To access the site go to http://www.golfstatresults.com. Full results will also be posted at http://www.TexasSports.com, while full recaps will be posted on und.com.
NEXT UP: Notre Dame will travel to Brown Summit, N.C. to take part in the Bryan National Collegiate, hosted by the Wake Forest University. The tournament will be played April 3-5.
–ND-