UK Women’s Golf Bounces Back in Second Round of NCAA Regionals

COLUMBUS, Ohio – After a tough opening to the NCAA Columbus Regional on Monday, Kentucky women’s golf head coach Golda Johansson Borst wanted to see how much fight her team had. Although she wanted her Wildcats to move up the leaderboard, she was most interested in finding out how her team would respond emotionally and mentally to an avalanche of adversity from the first round.

Consider the challenge accepted.

Although UK’s hopes of advancing to the next round and into the NCAA Championships are dim at best with just 18 holes to go, the Wildcats showed plenty of grit in shaving off 15 strokes from Monday’s first round. Continuing to battle the renowned Scarlet Course at the Ohio State University Golf Club in Columbus, Ohio, the team fired a 311 Tuesday (23-over par) to remain in 16th place at 61-over par.

Four of five Wildcats improved their scores from the first round to the second, and junior Isabelle Johansson, after a 75 Tuesday and at 9-over par overall, still has an outside chance at qualifying for the NCAA Championships as an individual if she can go low in Wednesday’s final round.

That final round will begin at 9:09 a.m. for UK. Fans can continue to follow along with live scoring at Golfstat.com and on the official Kentucky women’s golf social media channels, @KentuckyWGolf. 

“Today went better,” Borst said. “We obviously still have a lot of work ahead of us tomorrow, but I think the effort was better with the girls today. They fought a little bit harder. We still need to work on some of our decision making when we get into tough situations, but I was happy with how they responded.”

Kentucky’s ultimate goal of making it past this week and on to NCAA Championships appears highly unlikely at this point. The low six teams from each of the four NCAA Regionals (Columbus Regional, Albuquerque Regional, Lubbock Regional, Athens Regional) advance to the national championships, to be held May 19-24 at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Illinois. The Wildcats are currently 30 shots back of No. 27 Purdue for the all-important sixth-place position. 

However, depending on how things shake out Wednesday, Johansson could still at least be in the hunt for an individual berth. The low three individuals not on the six qualifying teams from each regional also advance to the NCAA Championships. Johansson did it once before, in 2015, when she became the first Wildcat since Heather Kraus in 1998 to advance to the NCAA Championships.

Johansson stayed in the mix Tuesday with a 3-over 75. It was a round that featured a little bit of everything. After getting off to a rough start with a double bogey on No. 11, her second hole of the day, she responded with a brilliant birdie on the par-3 13th after sticking her 156-yard shot within about five feet. She couldn’t keep the momentum going, however, and went 3-over par the next two holes.

Johansson kept it together with three straight pars to end the back nine and then got it going on the front side. She birdied holes No. 1 and 4 and parred all but her final hole of the day. She’s tied for 33rd.

Junior Grace Rose looked to have the round of the day going early when she posted birdies on the par-5 14th hole and then followed two holes later with a birdie on the par-3 16th. At that point she was 1-under on the round with a couple of nice par saves, including nearly holing out for birdie from the bunker on No. 13. 

Although Rose couldn’t sustain the push on her second nine, she tied Johansson for the team lead with three birdies Tuesday. She improved her score from Monday by six strokes and finished with a 76 in the second round. She’s at 14-over par overall and tied for 61st.

Freshman Josephine Chang cut off seven strokes from the opening round with a 78. She was one of two Wildcats to par the par-3 eighth hole. Chang is tied with fellow freshman Sarah Shipley in 81st after Shipley shot an 82 on day two. Both Wildcats are at 19-over par overall.

Sophomore Claire Carlin is tied for 91st at 27-over par.

Southeastern Conference champion and top overall seed Florida has managed the Scarlet Course the best so far and leads the tournament at 14-over par, but scores across the board have proved how unforgiving the signature course at the Ohio State University Golf Club can be.   

Recently renovated by Jack Nicklaus in 2006, the Scarlet Course is playing as long as 6,416 yards this week, a par 72. There are hazards around nearly every turn and plenty of opportunities for a score to go south, but Borst believes the Wildcats can put up a better challenge than they have so far on the final day of NCAA Regionals. 

 

“The message is to keep fighting and to control the controllables that we’ve done well with in the past,” Borst said. “We’re just giving this golf course too much respect. It is a difficult golf course, but it’s not that difficult. The girls just need to stay loose. They’re playing so tight. They’re trying to do so well and they’re trying so hard that it’s making them tighter. We talked to them about getting more loose and playing for pride tomorrow. We’ve got one more day, and we need to play with pride and play for Kentucky and see what we can do.”