Georgia’s Jenny Bae, Harmie Constantino and Jo Hua Hung were selected Freshman All-SEC in balloting of the league’s women’s golf coaches announced by the conference office on Thursday.
Constantino spent the entire season with the Bulldogs, while Bae and Hung were mid-year enrollees in January who became mainstays in the Georgia lineup.
Constantino, who is from Taguig, Philippines, led Georgia in virtually every statistical category this season, including stroke average (73.48), par-or-better rounds (11), top-10 finishes (five) and counting percentage (96.6). She was the Bulldogs’ top individual finisher in four of 11 stroke play events and also posted the team’s best 54-hole effort of the campaign (3-under 213).
“Harmie had a very good freshman year,” head coach Josh Brewer said. “She was a major contributor from day one and leads us in so many statistical categories. She probably had one of the better freshman years in Georgia history, save a win, but she had a very solid start and has a bright future.”
Bae, who is from Suwanee, Ga., and graduated from Collins Hill High School, posted three top-10 and four top-20 individual finishes in eight tournaments this spring. She was named SEC Freshman of the Week on March 13 after finishing ninth at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate, a tournament that featured five of the nation’s top-10 ranked golfers and 21 of the top-50.
“Jenny has been really solid,” Brewer said. “She’s developing into one of those types of players you expect to be near the top of the leaderboard when the tournament ends. We were excited to have her start a semester early, and she’s been a sponge. Her dream is to play on the LPGA, but at the same time, Georgia is very important to her. She wants to help Georgia compete for SEC and national championships. She’s hungry for more, and as a coach, that’s an attitude that you love.”
Hung, a native of New Taipei City, Taipei, who finished the year with a 73.95 stroke average, has been Georgia’s steadiest performer over the past month. She was named SEC Freshman of the Week on April 16 after posting a 3-0 record in match play to lead the Bulldogs to a third-place finish at the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic. Hung also was Georgia’s top finisher in stroke play qualifying at the SEC Championships and then notched a 2-0 record in match play.
“I think it took Jo about six-to-eight weeks in the States before she started feeling comfortable,” Brewer said. “Coming from Taiwan, this was the first time for just about everything. Everywhere she looked, everything was in English and I know her brain was worn out at times. At the end of the season, she started to get much more comfortable. I think this season is going to be a springboard for a great career for her at Georgia and beyond.”
Bae, Constantino and Hung are just the second trio of classmates to earn Freshman All-SEC accolades, following Georgia’s Jillian Hollis, Rinko Mitsunaga and Bailey Tardy in 2016. All told, 12 Bulldogs have now earned Freshman All-SEC honorees since the award’s inception in 2008.