UK Women’s Golf Begins NCAA Championship Finals Play on Friday
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Just 30 miles down the road from where its 2019-20 season came to a devastatingly abrupt ending due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kentucky women’s golf team will complete a journey two seasons in the making with an opportunity at a national championship this week.
The Wildcats are one of 24 teams competing at the NCAA Championship finals in Scottsdale, Arizona. Beginning Friday at the Grayhawk Golf Club’s Raptor Course, UK will appear in its first national finals since 1992.
“This is why I took the job, to get Kentucky to a national level and for us to be a national contender,” UK head coach Golda Borst said. “I didn’t expect it to take 11 years, but the road is a process and we are beyond excited.”
The stroke-play portion of the event begins Friday at 6:30 a.m. MST (9:30 a.m. EST). UK will begin its round with Alabama and Michigan State at 7:36 a.m. MST (10:36 EST) off the No. 1 tee.
Fans can follow along with live scoring all week at Golfstat.com and updates on the official Kentucky women’s golf social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram), @KentuckyWGolf. Post-round coverage will be available at UKathletics.com. For spectators in the area, admission is free and no ticket is required.
There will be two cuts over five days of competition. Teams will first compete in three 18-hole rounds of stroke play Friday through Sunday. Following the third round, the field will be trimmed to the top 15 teams and top nine individuals not on an advancing team for the final round of stroke play on Monday.
From the fourth round, the top eight teams from the 72-hole total scores will move on to the match-play bracket, which will be seeded in order of finish in stroke play. An individual champion will also be crowned after stroke play. A knockout match-play competition will then take place to determine the team national champion.
UK’s best national finish was fifth place at its inaugural NCAA Championship finals appearance in 1986. The Wildcats competed in the NCAA Championship finals five times in a seven-season span from 1986 to 1992 under longtime head coach Bettie Lou Evans, but UK had not been back since.
Kentucky will be competing against the best of the best, as one would expect for the national championship. The top 17 teams in the latest Golfstat rankings advanced through NCAA Regional play and 21 of the top 25.
The Wildcats clinched a spot among the talented field last week with a fourth-place finish at the NCAA Columbus Regional. Entering the final round in sixth place – the final spot to advance – UK shot a 2-over-par 290 in the final round and finished with a three-day total of 19-over par to lock up the sixth NCAA Championship finals berth in program history.
Borst said her team has been driven by two different things. One was last season’s opportunity the record-setting team lost because of the pandemic. That group – most of which returned this season – won two tournaments, placed second in another and set a school record for scoring, but the Wildcats never had the chance to see what they could do with it when the pandemic struck. UK was midway through its practice round in Arizona at the 2020 Clover Cup – just a half an hour away from the site of this season’s NCAA Championship final – when the team learned its season was over.
“It was heartbreaking last year when the season was cut short because we were playing great and we were trending in the right direction,” said senior captain Rikke Svejgård Nielsen. “Actually being able to do it this year and get into regionals and now getting to play in the NCAAs, it’s been a really long time coming and it’s exciting that we finally get to do it.”
The Wildcats have also been motivated by the Kentucky volleyball team, which stormed through the NCAA Tournament last month to win its first national title.
“I can’t tell you how many times,” Borst said, “I’ve gotten text messages from my team saying, ‘Look at what volleyball is doing We can do that too. We just want a chance at it. We just want our opportunity.’ You have to play well all year, obviously, to get that opportunity at the NCAA Regionals, but then you have to have poise and you have to have a calmness about you when you get there and play like you belong and walk in and own the place. They did that. They knew that they were capable, and they executed.”
The same lineup that executed last week in Columbus with Kentucky’s first NCAA Championship finals berth in 29 years will have the clubs in their hands again this week in Arizona. Reflecting last week’s order of finish, Sophomore María Villanueva Aperribay will be in the No. 1 position, followed by Svejgård Nielsen, freshman Laney Frye, and sophomores Jensen Castle and Marissa Wenzler.
Villanueva Aperribay and Svejgård Nielsen led Kentucky in Columbus by tying for fifth place with 54-hole scores of 1-over par. Each posted key birdies late on the back nine in the final round to separate from a crowded field vying for the last few spots to nationals.
Svejgård Nielsen was particularly clutch in the last round with a 2-under-par 70, including a birdie on No. 18 to essentially punch UK’s ticket to Scottsdale. The senior captain has posted top-20 finishes in three of the last four events and has improved her score in each of the last four tournaments.
Villanueva Aperribay has the second-best stroke average on the team and has posted four of the team’s five lowest rounds this season, all 69s. She also owns the lowest 54-hole total of the season, a 6-under-par 210 at the SEC Championship. The Spaniard has four rounds of par or better over her last six opportunities and she has carded a 73 or better in all six of those rounds.
The top scoring average on the team belongs to a freshman, Frye, with a 73.6. The Lexington native also leads UK with two top-10 finishes and 11 rounds of par or better, which is tied for the third most in single-season school history.
Although Castle has been unable to match her record-setting 2019-20 campaign when she set the school’s single-season stroke record, Castle has contributed her score to the team total in 28 of 30 rounds this season. Showcasing her potential, she qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open two weeks ago.
Wenzler has been a mainstay in the lineup this season after posting the third-best scoring average in school history as a freshman last season.
The NCAA Championship final will be played on the Grayhawk Golf Club’s Tom Fazio-designed Raptor Course. Playing at 6,429 yards, a par 72, Raptor has hosted several competitive professional and top amateur golf tournaments, including the PGA Tour’s Frys.com Open (2007 to 2009),
“The green complexes are probably the more challenging thing,” Borst said. “Speed on the greens are going to be really important for us. That seems to be the one thing that, if we struggle with the speed, we’re not making as many birdies as we’d like. So, we’re going to work really hard to get the speed of the greens and make sure we know our distances. It’s going to be a little different there. The ball is going to fly a little farther, so we need to make sure we know how far our irons are going so we can pick good numbers and then see if we can make some putts.”
As the Wildcats have played their best golf of the season down the stretch, almost every performance has been of the come-from-behind variety. At the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic, the Wildcats rallied from a 15th-place standing after day one to a third-place finish; at the LSU Tiger Classic, UK moved from 12th place after the first round to sixth by the end of the tournament; and after sitting in 11th place at the NCAA Columbus Regional, Kentucky finished in fourth.
To that end, Borst said the Wildcats do not have a score in mind that they need to post in the first round.
“Whatever it takes,” Borst said. “I think this team is mentally in a really, really good spot. They’re confident, they’re calm. Those are two things we really need. When this team is calm, look out. They’re just having fun right now. I think they’re just really enjoying the moment.”
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.
