Jensen Castle Named Southeastern Conference Golfer of the Week

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Jensen Castle, a senior golfer, has been named the Southeastern Conference Golfer of the Week after leading the University of Kentucky women’s golf team to back-to-back tournament championships. She is also coming off the first medalist honor of her college career, trumping the 75-person field at the Ruth’s Chris Tar Heel Invitational.

Castle is performing at the top of her game.

The Wildcat is boasting a 70.3 scoring average through 12 rounds this season, which leads the conference. Meanwhile, five of those rounds have been in the 60s with two 69s, one 68, one 67 and one 66.

Of Kentucky’s four tournaments this fall, she has paced the lineup in each of them. That includes her back-to-back, top-five finishes over the last two straight tournaments.

In the latest event, Castle put together rounds of 74, 67 and 68 to produce a 7-under-par 209 to be crowned the Ruth’s Chris Tar Heel Invitational tournament champion. In fact, Castle jumped 20 players on the individual leaderboard in order to finish in first place, sitting at tied for 20th place after the first round and tied for seventh place after the second round.

Jensen Castle won her playoff with a par on No. 9 to be CROWNED the individual champion at the Ruth’s Chris Tar Heel Invitational. 👑✨🤍@jensen_castle pic.twitter.com/Toi4gMCxpp

— Kentucky Women’s Golf (@KentuckyWGolf) October 19, 2022

Her 209 marked the fourth-best tournament total in her college career.

The West Columbia, South Carolina, native, who initiated the Birdies for Relief campaign last spring, made 13 birdies for the event, including three straight birdies to kick off the final round Tuesday. She completed her charge to the top of the individual leaderboard with an eagle on her 53rd hole, the par-5, No. 17 (510 yards). A one-hole playoff was necessary to break a tie between Castle and Duke’s Phoebe Brinker, with Castle emerging victorious after making par to Brinker’s bogey on No. 9 (par 3, 163 yards).

Castle, who owns the top-two, single-season scoring averages in program history (2019-20 – 71.8, 2021-22 – 72.7), is on pace to breaking that record again at the end of the season. Meanwhile, the Cat has eight rounds of par-or-better through 12 rounds this season, which ranks second on the team.

Kentucky has concluded its fall schedule and will not return to coemption until February at the UCF Challenge in Orlando, Florida.