Georgia’s 2015-16 team
(Photo by Sean Taylor)
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The Bulldogs are coming off an impressive victory at the Cardinal Kickoff at the Atlanta Athletic Club on Tuesday. Georgia shot even-par 576 and all five golfers recorded top-7 individual finishes in the one-day, 36-hole event. The Bulldogs fired a 4-under during their second loop, which tied Georgia’s eighth-best tally ever. Junior Harang Lee finished second on the individual leaderboard at 5-under 139, equaling the sixth-best relation-to-par effort in program history.
[su_spacer size=”40″] “It’s nice to have a couple of days to rest your body and then go compete again,” head coach Josh Brewer said. “We’ve played well for four weeks, and you just want to keep playing. When you’re making birdies and posting good scores, you just want to keep teeing it up and playing other schools.”
[su_spacer size=”40″] There are four team’s in Golfweek’s preseason top-30 in the field in Charleston. No. 4 Arkansas is the highest ranked team, followed by No. 13 Wake Forest, No. 17 Virginia and No. 24 N.C. State. Georgia was tabbed No. 27 in the Golfweek ledger. The other teams in the Cougar Classic lineup are Auburn, Central Florida, Charleston, Charleston Southern, Clemson, Florida, Furman, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi State, North Carolina, Penn State, UNC-Greensboro and Wisconsin.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Georgia will stick with the same playing five consisting of Lee, senior Manuela Carbajo Ré and freshmen Rinko Mitsunaga, Jillian Hollis and Bailey Tardy. All 10 Bulldog golfers competed in the Kickoff event, including Mary Ellen Shuman and Isabella Skinner finishing ninth and 12th, respectively.
[su_spacer size=”40″] “Now we’re traveling with five versus having the whole team.” Brewer said. “This will be a good test to see how we handle everything, playing a practice round, playing a tournament and resetting after each day. It’s definitely going to be different than Tuesday.”
[su_spacer size=”40″] Georgia’s celebrated freshman class, which combined to earn six AJGA All-America certificates as junior golfers, enjoyed solid success earlier this week. Mitsunaga tied for fifth and Hollis and Tardy both tied for seventh.
[su_spacer size=”40″] “For the three freshmen – me, Bailey and Jillian – we didn’t really know what to expect at our first tournament,” Mitsunaga said. “For us to win is great for our confidence going into the rest of the season. We’re all getting more used to college life, and I’m excited about this weekend and the rest of the season.”
[su_spacer size=”40″] This will be the seventh time Georgia has competed in the Cougar Classic since the tournament’s inception in 2003. The Bulldogs captured team titles at the 2008 and 2009 editions of the event. In fact, the top-two team scores in program history were posted at those Cougar Classics, a 14-under mark in 2009 and a 6-under tally in 2008.
[su_spacer size=”40″] “Traditionally, it’s a place where if you play well you’ll be rewarded with red numbers and low scores,” Brewer said. “Hopefully, that will be the case. We would like to see what we can do over three days on a golf course that’s very scorable. I’ll be curious to see how the course is set up. Some times you go to a place and for some reason they’ve done something a little bit different with the greens or how they cut their fairways and roughs.”
[su_spacer size=”40″] Georgia last compete in the Cougar Classic in 2013, when Carbajo Ré shot 2-under 214 to tie for 10th and lead the Bulldogs individually en route to a fourth-place team showing. That was the first tournament of her collegiate career and also Brewer’s first tourney as Georgia’s coach.
[su_spacer size=”40″] “I remember playing pretty good,” Carbajo Ré said. “It’s nice to come back to a course where I played well in the past. I still have the yardage book from my freshman year. I think I still know where to play it. I’m very excited. I can’t stop thinking about playing with the team. It’s been great. I’m looking forward to a great season.”
[su_spacer size=”40″] The Bulldogs will be paired with Wisconsin and Clemson for the first two rounds, teeing off in waves between 11:39 am-12:15 pm on Sunday and from 8:37-9:13 am on Monday. Tuesday’s final-round pairings will be based on the teams standings through 36 holes. Live scoring throughout tourney will be available via golfstat.com.
[su_spacer size=”40″] Following the Cougar Classic, Georgia will be back in action next Friday-Sunday when the Bulldogs compete in the Mason Rudolph Championship at the Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tenn.
[su_spacer size=”40″] For more on Univesity of Georgia Women’s Golf:
[su_spacer size=”40″] GEORGIADOGS.COM – University of Georgia Official Athletic Site – Women’s Golf
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