UK Women’s Golf Opens Season at Mercedes-Benz Championship
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – With its sights set on its first team NCAA Championships appearance since 1992 and with an experienced, talent-filled team, the Kentucky women’s golf team will begin its 2017-18 season on Monday at the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Play will begin Monday from the Cherokee Country Club with 36 holes, followed by the final round of 18 Tuesday. The tournament will be the first of four fall tournaments and the beginning of what the Wildcats hope will be a banner season.
UK is coming off an appearance in the 2017 NCAA Columbus Regional, the Wildcats’ sixth postseason appearance in seven seasons under head coach Golda Borst. Expectations are even bigger this year for a team that returned all but two players from last season and added three talented newcomers.
Kentucky accomplished a number of feats in 2016-17, including two individual titles, a new team 18-hole scoring record and tying the individual 18-hole scoring record (Isabelle Johansson), but this bunch of Wildcats is hoping that was just a taste of what’s to come this season.
That all starts Monday at the 21st annual Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship, a 15-team field that featuring some of the best teams in the country. Seven of the teams finished the 2016-17 season in Golfstat’s top 50 rankings.
The full field will consist of UK, host Tennessee, BYU, Coastal Carolina, Eastern Kentucky, ETSU, Illinois, Iowa, Kent State, Maryland, Missouri, NC State, SMU, UTSA and Wake Forest.
“We are really excited to kick off the season in Knoxville over the next few days,” Borst said. “We have had a very competitive three weeks at home and I know we have prepared well for this course. We have a great deal of experience and determination in our lineup and I look forward to Monday morning.”
Play begins Monday at 8:30 a.m. ET with a shotgun start. The second round will immediately follow the first round on Monday, with the final 18 holes set to start at Tuesday at 9 a.m. ET with a shotgun start.
Live scoring will be available at GolfStat.com.
Kentucky last appeared at the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship in the fall of 2015, when the Wildcats placed 14th. The Wildcats have appeared in the tournament nine times before but have never finished better than ninth.
UK will try to break that barrier this week with a experienced lineup of redshirt senior Ale Walker, junior Leonie Bettel, Johansson, sophomore Sarah Shipley and senior Grace Rose. Junior Claire Carlin will compete as an individual.
Walker will enter the tournament after one of the top individual feats of her career. Last month, Walker qualified for stage II of LPGA Qualifying School with a four-day total of 1-under par. Walker easily made the cut of 90 players from stage I in a record field of 362. She fired under-par scores in each of the first three rounds. A veteran who has been a part of the program since 2013-14, Walker appears poised for a big year after a bounce-back season in 2016-17.
Behind Walker will be a newcomer. Bettel, a highly touted transfer from NC State, will make her Wildcat debut at the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship. She has already made a quick impression on the team, finishing first in the pre-tournament qualifying over five rounds (Walker was exempt). Bettel played in all 10 events last season at NC State, finishing the year with a 74.5 stroke average, third best on the team.
If there’s evidence of Kentucky’s depth and talent this season, look no further than who is in the three spot for the season-opening tournament: the UK school record holder for single-season scoring average, Johansson. The senior is coming off a junior year in which she won a tournament (Minnesota Invitational), posted three top-10 finishes, tied the lowest 18-hole round in school history (64) and set the school record with a 73.3 single-season average.
Shipley was a major contributor in her freshman season as one of only two Wildcats (Johansson being the other) to play in all 11 events last season. She posted a 76.9 scoring average on the season and won the individual match-play bracket at the East & West Match Play Challenge in the fall.
Rose will round out the team scoring for the Wildcats this week. The senior from Nicholasville, Kentucky, was arguably UK’s most consistent golfer in the spring, tying Johansson with a team-best six rounds of par or better in the second half of the season. She finished behind only Johansson with a 74.4 scoring average.
Carlin will play as an individual. She saw increased action in the spring as a sophomore, including qualifying for one of the five spots at the NCAA Columbus Regional.
Cherokee Country Club will play as a par 71 with a yardage of 5,897 yards this week. Nestled on a bend in the Tennessee River with sweeping views of the Smoky Mountains, the golf course is a Donald Ross design completely restored by Ron Prichard in 2008.
For the latest on the Kentucky women’s golf team, follow the team on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.
