Frye Goes Low in Opening Round of Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic
ATHENS, Ga. – She may be a freshman, but Laney Frye sure knows the importance of a fast start.
For the fifth time in seven events this season, the Kentucky women’s golf team’s youngest player opened with the Wildcats’ best score to begin a tournament.
Frye is among the tournament leaders and paced UK on day one of the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic with a score of 2-under par. The freshman’s 70 not only tied her best score of the season, it positioned her in a tie for fifth place after the first of three rounds at the UGA Golf Course (par 72, 6,287 yards) in Athens, Georgia.
With Frye’s team-leading eighth round of par or better this season, the Wildcats are tied for 15th at 14-over par (302) through the event’s first 18 holes.
No. 4 LSU leads an impressive, Southeastern Conference-dominated event at even par. The Tigers’ Ingrid Lindblad, the No. 1 player in the country, leads the 90-player pack at 8-under par after setting the 18-hole tournament record on Friday, an event that dates back to 1973.
“I felt like we got off to a steady start today and made some birdies early, which got our momentum going,” UK head coach Golda Borst said. “Unfortunately, we also had some big numbers along the way that hurt. Our second nine got the best of us, but we will continue to work at it and there is a lot of golf left. We have to stay patient right now and keep giving ourselves chances to score while working on eliminating the bigger misses.”
The Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic will resume Saturday at 8:30 a.m. with the second round. UK will tee off at 10:10 a.m. Live scoring will continue to be available at Golfstat.com.
Despite her collegiate inexperience, Frye continues to impress. The experience Frye does have going for her is playing the same course in the fall version of the tournament just a few months ago. Frye tied for 26th in that November event with a 54-hole score of 7-over par. She bested all three of those rounds Friday with three birdies and 14 pars.
The only blemish on Frye’s scorecard was the final hole, a bogey on the par-4 ninth. The bogey prevented her from tying UK’s best round of the season.
Sophomore Jensen Castle matched Frye with three birdies, including two in her first six holes. However, Castle is four shots back of Frye, at 2-over par and in a tie for 26th, because of two bogeys and a triple.
Kentucky’s other three players all posted identical scores of 79 and are tied for 74th.
Sophomore María Villanueva Aperribay got off to a great start with two birdies in the first three holes but was unable to find red numbers the rest of the day. Freshman Marissa Wenzler was UK’s top finisher at the fall version of the tournament in November at 5-over par, and senior Rikke Svejgård Nielsen entered the event in the No. 1 position for the Wildcats. The trio hopes to bounce back Saturday.
Kentucky tied for eighth in the fall tournament against 11 of the league’s 14 schools. Georgia hosted a fall version of the tournament to make up for last spring’s event, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
All 14 SEC teams are competing this week in Athens in addition to College of Charleston, Louisville, Southern California and Georgia’s “B” team. With the SEC-wide presence, this weekend once again features a stiff challenge for the Wildcats. Thirteen of the 18 teams are ranked in the Golfstat top 50, nine are in the top 25 and four are in the top 10.
Kentucky’s appearance in the November tournament was its best showing of the fall. UK posted its lowest 54-hole (21-over-par 885) and 18-hole (2-over-par 288 in the second round) scores of the three autumn tournaments.
UK is coming off at 15th-place finish at the Gamecock Intercollegiate to start March. This Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic marks the fourth tournament of the spring and the seventh overall in the 2020-21 Kentucky season. The Wildcats will wrap up the regular season at the LSU Tiger Golf Classic to start April before shifting their attention to the postseason.
For the latest on the Kentucky women’s golf team, follow the team on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.
