UK Women’s Golf Heads to Arizona for Clover Cup
MESA, Ariz. – The Kentucky women’s golf team begins an important three-tournament stretch this weekend at the Clover Cup, a familiar and recently successful stop for the Wildcats.
UK will compete at the Longbow Golf Club (par 72, 6,184 yards) in Mesa, Arizona, for the fourth consecutive season. The Wildcats have enjoyed prior success at Notre Dame’s annual spring tournament with top-five showings in each of the last three seasons and back-to-back third-place finishes, including an individual championship for departed senior Leonie Bettel last season.
The Wildcats will try to build on their past success and continue a breakthrough 2019-20 campaign at the 2020 edition of the tournament. The 54-hole tournament begins Friday with 18 holes a day through Sunday. Tee times being each day at 11 a.m. ET.
The familiar lineup of freshmen Jensen Castle and Marissa Wenzler, sophomore Rikke Svejgård Nielsen, senior Sarah Shipley, and sophomore Casey Ott will compete for UK this week. It’s the sixth straight tournament the Wildcats have used a combination of that group.
Live scoring will be available throughout the weekend at GolfStat.com.
“We are very excited to be back on the road and back to a familiar course in Longbow,” UK head coach Golda Borst said. “It’s been a good couple of weeks at home where we’ve been able to compete as a team and catch up on school, but this team is a competitive bunch. I know they have been waiting impatiently to tee it up again on Friday.
“This week we will work to narrow our focus and try to eliminate the outside noise. We’ve got some great competition coming up over the next two weeks and we can’t wait to get started.”
This weekend’s competition begins a stretch of three tournaments over the next four weeks before postseason play begins in mid-April at the Southeastern Conference Championship.
This week’s field of 16 features schools from across the country, including the No. 1 and No. 4 ranked teams in the nation, Wake Forest and Southern California. The Wildcats entered the week ranked No. 25 in the latest Golfstat rankings after a seventh-place showing at the Moon Golf Invitational in mid-February.
Castle continues to leave the Wildcats in stroke average with 71.9 18-hole average, well ahead of Bettel’s 2018-19 school record of 73.16. The freshman phenom, who is in the running for an Arnold Palmer Cup selection, also has 11 rounds or par or better in 15 opportunities and leads the team with five top-20 showings.
Castle isn’t the only freshman making a major impact in year one. Wenzler will make her seventh appearance after a consistently steady first season at Kentucky. The Ohio native is averaging 73.2 strokes per round with three top-20 finishes.
Svejgård Nielsen, who tied for 20th at last season’s Clover Cup, has been among the top-performing Wildcats this season with two top-10 finishes and a 73.6 stroke average.
Shipley also has one of the Wildcats’ 10 top-10 individual showings. She’ll make her 38th collegiate appearance and fourth at the Clover Cup. She tied for ninth place in Mesa in 2018 as a sophomore.
Ott is back in the lineup after tying for 14th at the Moon Golf Invitational, which featured a final-round 68 in Melbourne, Florida. She boasts a team-high three top-10 showings and tied for 25th in last season’s Clover Cup.
Longbow Golf Club, site of this weekend’s tournament, opened in 1997 and was redesigned in 2003.
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.
