Kansas Women's Golf Opens Spring Season in Tallahassee
Feb. 14, 2013
LAWRENCE, Kan. – Kansas’ women’s golf team will open the spring season at the Florida State Match-Up Tournament Feb. 15-17, at the Southwood Golf Club in Tallahassee, Fla.
“We’ve had a couple months off and we’re ready to get back in action,” KU’s eighth-year head coach Erin O’Neil Miller said. “We’re all excited, especially going down to a tournament like this one.”
The match-up portion of the event, played on the 7,172-yard, par 72 course, is believed to be a first of its kind as two teams will pair up and compete against five other combined teams. Kansas and Furman will be teamed up with the five 10-person team consisting of host Florida State/Texas A&M, Oklahoma/Georgia, Notre Dame/Michigan, Tennessee/Texas-San Antonio and UNC Greensboro/UNC Wilmington.
“I think this will be a highly competitive field,” O’Neil Miller said. “It will be a good chance to measure where we are and will be a good challenge for us.”
O’Neil Miller and Furman head coach Kelley Hester were college teammates at Georgia and have known each other since they were 15 years old.
“We’ll touch base once we get there and go over our strategy of how we will approach the tournament,” O’Neill Miller said.
In the three-round 54-hole stroke-play format, teams will tee off in twosomes for the first two rounds on Feb. 15 and 16, then in a final round shotgun in threesomes on Feb. 17. The Match-Up portion of the tournament will be determined by taking the best four scores from the partners (which is a total of 10 players) and the worst score to make the Match-Up team total. At the end of the tournament, the teams with the lowest score will win the event. An individual and team champion will also be awarded.
“This is the first time we’ve played in a tournament like this and it might be the first time they’ve ever had a format like this,” O’Neil Miller said. “The girls are excited about having more of a team-type tournament rather than just individuals playing.”
Kansas’ women’s golf team is coming off one of the school’s most successful fall seasons in 2012. The Jayhawks won back-to-back tournaments in late September and early October and including those, had four top-10 finishes to close out the fall campaign.
Through qualifying since the second semester began in early January, Kansas will use the following lineup in Tallahassee – freshman Yapaporn “Mook” Kawainpakorn, junior Thanuttra “Fhong” Boonraksasat, sophomore Gabby DiMarco, junior Meghan Potee and sophomore Michelle Woods. All but Woods participated in every fall event for KU with Boonraksasat leading the team with a 74.4 per round average in 15 rounds played. She was followed by Kawainpakorn (74.6), Potee (76.1) and DiMarco (76.8). Woods had an 81.3 per round average in her three rounds last fall.
“It was real close for the four-five spots,” O’Neil Miller said of the recent qualifying. “Michelle played solid and earned her spot. It was a good competition for all the girls and I think it will push everyone to work harder and make us better all around.”
KUAthletics.com: The official online source for Kansas Athletics, Williams Education Fund contributions, tickets, merchandise, multimedia, photos and much, much more.
