UK Women’s Golf Heads Back West for PING ASU Invitational

TEMPE, Ariz. – With the postseason on the horizon, the Kentucky women’s golf team heads west this weekend for its final regular-season tournament. The Wildcats will compete in the PING ASU Invitational starting on Friday.

The tournament is a 54-hole, three-round format and will conclude Sunday. Tee times begin Friday at 10 a.m. ET with live scoring available at Golfstat.com. 

With just two weeks to go until the Southeastern Conference Championship, the Wildcats are looking for a bounce-back weekend after finishing outside the top 10 at the LSU Tiger Golf Classic in their last tournament. UK has placed sixth or better in five of its seven stroke-play format tournaments, including two top-three finishes. 

It’s Kentucky’s third tournament in the last four weeks as the Wildcats gear up for postseason play. UK enters the week ranked No. 53 in the Golfstat rankings, very much in the conversation for the program’s sixth NCAA regional bid in seven seasons under head coach Golda Johansson Borst.

“We have another relatively quick turnaround for our next tournament this weekend and our practices have been focused and efficient,” Borst said. “The team is very motivated after how we finished at LSU and we feel good about going back to Arizona.” 

UK wasn’t far from Tempe when it played in the Clover Cup in Mesa, Arizona, in mid-March. There, under the scorching desert heat that saw temperatures reach into the upper-90s, Kentucky placed fifth thanks to a valiant final-round rally. 

Temperatures won’t be quite as hot this week in Tempe where Borst will roll out the lineup of juniors Isabelle Johansson and Grace Rose, freshmen Sarah Shipley and Josephine Chang, and senior Jordan Chael.

“We enjoy playing out west and this golf course is fairly similar to the last one we played a few weeks ago,” Borst said. “We know we will have the opportunity to get a lot of looks at birdies and we look forward to capitalizing on those and seeing how low we can take it this week.”

The 14-team field consists of eight teams ranked in the top 50 and three in the top 25, including No. 5 Arizona State, the host of the tournament. It’s the 45th edition of the tournament but the first time the Wildcats have made an appearance in it during the Borst era.

The ASU Karsten Golf Course will once again play host to the tournament. The Pete Dye-designed course will play at 6,337 yards with a par of 72.

Johansson will make her team-leading ninth appearance this season. She continues to lead the Wildcats in nearly every statistical category, including scoring average (73.1), top-20 finishes (five), top-10 finishes (three), lowest 18-hole round of the season (64) and lowest 54-hole score of the year (208). 

Rose is making her sixth consecutive appearance. Twelve of her 14 rounds this season have been 76s or better.

Shipley, tied with Johansson for her ninth appearance of the season, is coming off a strong final round at the LSU Tiger Golf Classic, where she shot an even-par 72 to move up the leaderboard. It was the fourth even- or under-par round of the season and first since early February.

Chang has appeared in every event this season except the season-opening Minnesota Invitational. She was UK’s best golfer in its previous trip to Arizona three weeks ago at the Clover Cup, finishing in a team-best 16th place.

Chael will make her first appearance since the UCF Challenge in February. She was arguably Kentucky’s strongest golfer in the fall season with three straight top-10 finishes in September and October.