UK Women’s Golf Tied for 11th After Round One of NCAA Regionals
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Qualifying for the NCAA Championships does not happen on day one of NCAA Regionals, but the opportunity can be lost.
In that regard, the Kentucky women’s golf team did it exactly what it needed to do Monday in the opening round of the NCAA Columbus Regional. The Wildcats held their ground in a tightly bunched field and are tied for 11th place after the first of three rounds in Columbus, Ohio.
Kentucky shot a regional-opening 10-over-par 298 and is only seven strokes behind the sixth-place position. The top six teams at the end of Wednesday advance to the NCAA Championships.
“We’re definitely still in this,” UK head coach Golda Borst said. “It was a challenging back nine for us [UK started on the back nine]. Obviously the first nine we got off to a rough start. We just didn’t make a lot of putts and then I think … some of that frustration started to leak in and we started to press and try to make even more.
“But overall, we are absolutely still in this thing. We are OK. We have a great team. We have great players. We’re going to be OK.”
Sophomore María Villanueva Aperribay led the way for the Wildcats with a 1-over-par 73. All four other Kentucky players posted scores of 75 on a chilly and windy day at the Ohio State University Golf Club’s Scarlet Course (par 72, 6,358 yards).
Through 18 of 54 holes, the coveted top six spots could go to anyone. Only 13 shots separate the first-place team, No. 33 Oklahoma at 2-under par, and the Clemson Tigers, who are in 14th place at 11-over par.
Kentucky is right in the middle of that bunch, and had a few putts gone their way Monday, the Wildcats likely would have been higher.
“We had a couple of days where we didn’t really get to hit golf balls (because of the weather), so I thought that they stuck with the process really well today,” Borst said. “We had a goal of hitting more than 70% of the greens as a team and they did that. We played the par 5s how we wanted to. Do we want a few more birdies? Absolutely. But we are doing some of the things we need to do to score. We are putting ourselves in position, and that’s all you can really ask for. Now we just to have to get better a little bit at finding better lines on the green and where to place the ball well, but we’re striking the ball well and good things are going to come.”
Tournament play will resume Tuesday at 8 a.m. with UK slated to tee off among the first groups on No. 10.
Live scoring will continue to be available at Golfstat.com with updates on the official Kentucky women’s golf social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram), @KentuckyWGolf.
The goal this week for Kentucky is simple: place in the top six and advance to the NCAA Championships. The NCAA Women’s Golf Championship is made up of four regionals that consist of 18 teams and six individuals at each site. The four regional sites are preliminary rounds of the NCAA Championships. The low six teams and the low three individuals not on those teams (for a total of 24 teams and 12 individuals) advance to the national event, to be held May 21-26 at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona.
UK is seeking its sixth all-time national championship appearance and its first since 1992. The Wildcats will try to make up ground Tuesday in Columbus, where temperatures are supposed to remain chilly and the wind is always factor.
Villanueva Aperribay continued her strong late-season play with three birdies in the opening round. All three of them came in a seven-hole stretch midway through the round that saw her get as low as 1-under par. Two bogeys over the last five holes knocked her out of the top 10 and over par. She is tied for 23rd at 1-over par.
The other four Wildcats all took varying paths to get to 75 and are all knotted in 40th place.
Sophomore Jensen Castle’s 75 was arguably the most impressive given the resiliency she displayed. The 2021 U.S. Women’s Open qualifier did not get off to the start she wanted when she found her second shot on her opening hole buried in a greenside bunker. It took Castle two shots to get out and she missed the bogey putt for a double to start her first NCAA postseason.
A bogey on the next hole certainly did not help with any early nerves, but Castle settled in. After she followed a birdie with a bogey on No. 13, her fourth hole of the day, Castle responded with 14 straight pars to salvage the round and build momentum for Tuesday.
“Jensen is one of the toughest players that I know,” Borst said. “Really proud of her for how she handled (the early adversity). I know she’s really frustrated. She was aggravated out there and upset early, but she calmed down and created opportunities.”
Freshman Laney Frye, Kentucky’s 2020-21 stroke average leader and a Southeastern Conference All-Freshman Team selection, appeared to have the round of the day going for a while. She played the opening nine in 1-under par but ran into some bumps down the stretch with four bogeys on her second nine.
Senior Rikke Svejgård Nielsen rebounded from a double bogey on the first hole with a pair of birdies on her first nine. She closed with seven straight pars to get to 3-over par.
Sophomore Marissa Wenzler shaped some impressive shots Monday but could not get the putts to drop. The Centerville, Ohio, native won the Ohio High School Athletic Association state title on the OSU Golf Club sister track, the Gray Course, in 2018.
This NCAA Regionals appearance marks the seventh in the 11-season Borst era and Kentucky’s 18th overall. UK was a lock for the postseason last year after a breakthrough season, but the 2020 postseason was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
UK’s last NCAA Regionals appearance was in 2017, also at the NCAA Columbus Regional. The Wildcats are well ahead of their 2017 scoring pace when they finished in 16th place.
“I’m not worried about what anybody else is doing,” Borst said. “That was one of our main things is we don’t want to worry about what any other team is doing. We just have to worry about playing as good as we can. I think that our best and our good is good enough to get to the national championship, and I truly believe that. And so, we’re going to keep going and hitting fairways and hitting greens and giving ourselves opportunities and see where the chips fall. I think we’ve got a good shot.”
Kentucky entered this week with some momentum. UK played well in its final three events leading into the NCAA postseason, finishing third at the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic in March and sixth at the LSU Tiger Golf Classic in April – both which featured strong come-from-behind final rounds. Although the Wildcats failed to qualify for match play at the SEC Championship in mid-April, Kentucky turned in a 1-over-par 865, one of the best 54-hole scores in school history and UK’s best SEC Championship score – by 20 strokes – in the 40 seasons of the event.
On top of that, playing outside college competition, Castle qualified for the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open last week and Castle and Wenzler advanced to the national quarterfinals of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball two weeks ago.
The Scarlet Course at the OSU Golf Club is arguably the toughest layout of the four regionals. Renovated by Jack Nicklaus in 2006 and the host of major tournaments on an almost annual basis, the course was lengthened and the bunkers were redesigned to add to an already stiff test. Wet conditions on Sunday only stretched the course even more.
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.
