Women's Golf To Tee Off SEC Championship Friday
Starkville, Miss. – Following the best regular season of golf to date in Mississippi State history, the No. 9-ranked women’s golf team will begin play in the SEC Women’s Championship in Birmingham, Ala., on Friday.
The three-day event will be played at the par-72 Greystone Golf & Country Club. Eight teams come into the event ranked in the Top 25, including highest ranked of the bunch, South Carolina, which is fourth according to golfstat.com.
The Bulldog’s enter this year’s tournament one year removed from a 12th-place finish. After a slow start in the first round, MSU found its rhythm, shooting the third lowest card of the day on the final round.
“Last year, we had one bad round, but we proved that we can shoot great numbers in the last two rounds,” MSU coach Ginger Brown-Lemm said. “Some of the best teams in the country will be represented here this weekend, but our squad is one of those teams as well.”
In her fifth year at the helm, Brown-Lemm has built MSU women’s golf as one of the elite programs in the nation, reaching rankings this season as high as No. 1 in the country.
The team finished every tournament this season in the Top 10, including two first-place finishes in the Schooner Fall Classic and The Old Waverly Bulldog Invitational. Along with the first-place finishes, the Bulldogs also were runner up in two tournaments.
Leading the way in her final season as a Bulldog is senior All-American Ally McDonald. Currently ranked as the No. 8 player in the country, she is recently coming off a 4th-place finish in the LSU tiger classic. She also broke the course record at the Belmar Golf Club at Schooner Fall Classic, as well as coming in first place individually at the Old Waverly Invitational. McDonald looks to continue her success at the SEC Championship Tournament.
“It’s been a great year,” McDonald said. “Coming in to post-season play, everyone is finding their stride in just the right time.”
Behind McDonald is sophomore Jessica Peng, ranked No. 10 nationally by Golfstat. She finished every tournament this season with the exception of one the in the Top 10 individually and is tied for the lowest spring scoring average on the team currently at 73.3.
Fresh off a second-place finish at LSU that was decided by a sudden death play-off for first place is senior Rica Tse, who has been a consistent member of the Bulldog squad helping the team achieve low scoring averages all year long.
Tse, playing this tournament before, recalls last year’s event.
“I am very confident in my team that we can come out better than before,” Tse said. “We are respected by other teams now, and they see us as competitors.”
Weather for this weekend’s event could hinder the competition. The championship committee has made arrangements calling for a shotgun-start round to be played on Friday teeing off at 9 a.m. CT. The committee will continue to monitor weather and update immediately.
Coverage of this tournament will be provided via Golfstat.com as well as a replay of the event on April 29 at 9:30 p.m. CT on the SEC Television Network.