Wildcats Swing Into Spring Season at Familiar UCF Challenge
ORLANDO, Fla. – The University of Kentucky women’s golf team will compete in its first tournament of the spring season at the UCF Challenge at Eagle Creek Golf Club (par 72, 6,367 yards) in Orlando, Florida. The event was originally scheduled to begin Sunday but will now run Saturday through Tuesday because of weather in the area.
The first round will take place Saturday at noon ET, while the second round is scheduled for Monday at 8:30 a.m. ET and the second round on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET, all of which will be shotgun formats.
The Wildcats have historically performed well at the Eagle Creek Golf Club.
In 2022, Kentucky finished runner-up out of 18 teams. UK strung together some of the best rounds in program laurels – 276, 279 and 278 – to produce a then-school-record, 31-under-par 833. At the time, all three of those scores were top-five, all-time lowest team rounds in school history, including the record-setting, 12-under-par 276 assembled in the first round. In 2023, Kentucky improved its position on the team leaderboard after each round, ultimately earning fifth place with a 20-under-par 844. The final score marked the Wildcats’ third-best tournament total in program history at the time.
Kentucky is already off to a hot start after coming off a win over Indiana, 4-1, in match play last weekend. It kicked off a highly anticipated spring season because of its talented, veteran roster.
The Wildcats will use the lineup Laney Frye (69.9), Jensen Castle (73.6), Marissa Wenzler (72.4), Marta López Echevarría (75.6) and Cathryn Brown this weekend at the UCF Challenge.
Frye, a senior from Nicholasville, Kentucky, is playing the best golf of her career. Fresh off the Curtis Cup Training Camp and LPGA Drive On Championship, her fall season included seven rounds of par-or-better (through 11 rounds), including six rounds in the 60s. In all four fall tournaments, she claimed four top-15 finishes, including three top-10 finishes, while she concluded that stretch on a 7-under-par 209 for fourth place.
Frye and Castle, a graduate student from West Columbia, South Carolina, both earned invitations to the 2024 Augusta National Women’s Amateur, which will be held in Augusta, Georgia, this April. Frye is currently the 12th-ranked woman amateur in the U.S. and the 46th-ranked amateur in the world, while Castle, is the 26th-ranked woman amateur in the U.S. and the 83rd-ranked amateur in the world.
Wenzler is primed for a strong spring showcase after earning a 1-under-par 215 for T10 in the final fall tournament at the Ruth’s Chris Tar Heel Invitational. The Dayton, Ohio, native had six rounds of par-or-better in the fall (through 11 rounds), while she produced two tournament totals under-par, too.
López Echevarría, a junior from Roquetas de Mar, Spain, has only seen action in one tournament this season, however it was the Cats’ most recent tournament at the Ruth’s Chris Tar Heel Invitational in late October. She brought consistency to the lineup with rounds of 76, 75 and 76, while she earned a finish inside the top 50.
Brown, a freshman from Eddyville, Kentucky, will make her official debut at the UCF Challenge. She already played one round this season in the Kentucky-Indiana contest last weekend, and despite it being an official round, she recorded an impressive 2-over-par 74. That performance, combined with her qualifying scores from practice last week, helped her make her first start in college golf Saturday.
Eighteen teams will compete in the field, including No. 13 UCF, UNC, Kentucky, Northwestern, Central Arkansas, Miami, UNCW, Michigan State, Kent State, Iowa State, North Texas, ODU, Charleston, Kansas, Nebraska, Penn State, Texas Tech and Virginia Tech.
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