UK Women’s Golf Faces Louisville to Open 2022 Spring Slate
NAPLES, Fla. – After a successful fall campaign, the Kentucky women’s golf team resumes its 2021-22 season on Tuesday vs. archrival Louisville to begin the 2022 spring slate.
The Wildcats and Cardinals will go head-to-head in match play at Club Pelican Bay in Naples, Florida. Eight of nine UK players will be action in a best-of-eight format to determine the Battle of the Bluegrass champion.
The match will begin at 8 a.m. on Tuesday. Live scoring will not be available.
“The spring season is upon us and we’re looking forward to our match vs. Louisville,” UK head coach Golda Borst said. “This match serves several purposes and it’s a good tune-up as we get ready for the UCF Challenge in a few weeks. The match-play format will provide us with a good experience.”
Although Kentucky and Louisville see each other frequently at tournaments throughout the season, this will be the first Battle of the Bluegrass since the 2018-19 season. Louisville won that February 2019 showdown 4-1. That was also the last time UK played in the match-play format.
The Wildcats hope the match-play test early in the spring slate will come in handy later in the season. Both the Southeastern Conference Championship and the NCAA Championship Finals feature match play for the teams that advance past the stroke-play rounds.
Kentucky, of course, has its sights set on being in that postseason mix. Led by junior Jensen Castle, the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion and Curtis Cup member, Kentucky is No. 34 in the latest Golfstat rankings following a solid four-tournament fall campaign.
The Wildcats placed in the top five in two of their four fall events with strong individual showings from several players. Castle led the way with two top-20 finishes and a third-place showing at the Mason Rudolph Championship. Sophomore Laney Frye also tied for 10th at the Mason Rudolph.
In all, UK posted two individual top-10 finishes and five top-20 showings. Kentucky concluded the fall season with a 54-hole average of 290.75, which would be second-best in school history over a full season.
Individually, Castle is just ahead of her 2019-20 school-record pace by mere fractions with 71.75 strokes per round. She is tied for the team lead with six rounds of par or better, and all 12 of her rounds have been used for the team score.
Frye, who made the 2021 SEC All-Freshman Team, also has six rounds of par or better and posted a 72.9 stroke average, second best on the team. Junior María Villanueva Aperribay averaged 73.4 strokes per rounds, and junior Marissa Wenzler (even-par 216) and Rikke Svejgård Nielsen (2-over-par 218) carded two of the better 54-hole scores of the fall.
The Wildcats are coming off a historic 2020-21 campaign. Kentucky made its first NCAA Championship Finals appearance since 1992 and tied for 18th place at the national championship in Scottsdale, Arizona.
All five players — Svejgård Nielsen, Castle, Wenzler, Villanueva Aperribay and Frye — who clinched the berth at the NCAA Columbus Regional and competed in Scottsdale returned for the 2021-22 season and will be in action Tuesday, in addition to fifth-year senior Sarah Fite, redshirt junior Ryan Bender and freshman Marta López Echevarría.
The Cardinals enter the spring ranked No. 32. UK and UofL appeared in the same event twice in the fall. The Wildcats finished ahead of the Cardinals in the latest meeting, in September at the Mason Rudolph Championship.
Tuesday’s match begins a busy spring for UK. Next week, four Wildcats will compete as individuals in the Lady Bulldog Individual Championship (Jan. 29-30) before traditional team stroke-play events begin. Kentucky will compete in four team stroke-play events before the postseason begins April 13 at the SEC Championship in Birmingham, Alabama.
The Wildcats made an early trip down to Florida over the weekend to practice at Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida.
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.
