UK Women’s Golf Shows Improvement, Moves Up a Spot at The Ally
WEST POINT, Miss. – The Kentucky women’s golf team turned in its second-best round of the young season and showed steady improvement on the second day of The Ally at Old Waverly Club.
With four of five Wildcats improving on their first-round scores, UK carded a 6-over-par 294 on Tuesday in West Point, Mississippi. That moved Kentucky up a spot and into 12th place at 20-over par overall heading into the final 18 holes.
Sophomore Jensen Castle remains in the top 20 and seven shots off the lead at 1-under par.
The final around will tee off Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. ET with a shotgun start. Live scoring will continue to be available at GolfStat.com.
Four of five Wildcats shot 74 or better to get to the 294 on Tuesday. Sophomore Marissa Wenzler fired the round of the day for Kentucky, an even-par 72, for her second round of par or better this season.
The second-year Wildcat got off to a fast start on the back nine – UK’s opening nine holes – with three straight birdies on holes 13, 14 and 15. That got her to 3-under par on the day before a double bogey slowed the momentum.
Wenzler, who won two tournaments this summer with two more runner-up showings, got back to 2-under par briefly before finishing with two bogeys over her final five holes. She’s tied for 51st at 7-over par through 36 holes.
The two-round Wildcat leader is Castle thanks to a tournament-opening 69. Castle couldn’t replicate that success Tuesday and recorded a 74, but she’s put herself in position for a strong final showing at 1-under par overall, tied for 14th.
Castle was even par through her first nine holes. She softened the blow of a bogey and a double bogey on holes five and six with a birdie on No. 8. The South Carolina native is seeking the sixth top-20 finish of her college career.
Freshman Laney Frye shaved off two strokes from her first-round 76 with a 74 on Tuesday. Frye, who tied for sixth place at the season-opening Blessing Collegiate Invitational – the top freshman finisher in the field – posted four birdies in the second round but was undone but a pair of double bogeys.
Senior Rikke Svejgård Nielsen is a part of the logjam in the middle of the field and in a tie for 53rd at 8-over par following her 74 in the second round. She closed nicely with birdies on her final two holes.
Junior Casey Ott showed improvement as well with a 76. She’s tied for 60th at 11-over par overall.
South Carolina and Tennessee made strong moves in the second round and lead the tournament at 8-under and 6-under par, respectively. The Volunteers’ Mikayla Bardwell leads the 75-player field at 8-under par.
The Ally is the second of three fall tournaments on Kentucky’s fall schedule. UK opened the season with an eighth-place finish at the BCI in Fayetteville, Arkansas in the Southeastern Conference-only field. After careful consideration from health officials, the SEC deemed it safe for league membership to participate in three team events in the fall, but teams are limited to events involving only SEC members or nonconference teams from the tournament host’s geographic region. This week’s field is the 14 league schools, plus Southern Miss.
The renamed MSU tournament, The Ally, is in honor of former Mississippi State golfer Ally McDonald Ewing, an All-American who set a number of program records and currently plays on the LPGA Tour. Old Waverly Golf Club, designed by Bob Cupp and host of the 2019 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship, is playing at 6,377 yards, a par 72.
UK is coming off a 2019-20 season that featured two championships and a runner-up finish, new records for team scoring average and individual scoring average (Castle), posted 10 individual top-10 showings and 20 top-20 finishes. The bulk of the group responsible for those numbers is back for 2020-21.
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.
