Jayhawks Record Best Stroke Improvement at Big 12 Championship
April 28, 2012
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
LAWRENCE, Kan. – Under partly cloudy skies and notably calmer winds, the Kansas women’s golf team saw significant improvement in the second round of the Big 12 Championship at Lawrence Country Club Saturday. Finishing the day in 10th place with a 307, the Jayhawks shaved 31 strokes from their first round to bring in a two-day total of 645. Head coach Erin O’Neil was extremely happy about her team’s performance.
“The girls did phenomenal; it was a great turnaround,” O’Neil said. “I was proud of them for finishing really strong on 16, 17 and 18 which are three tough holes. I think we went one-under on those holes as a team which is great.”
Sophomore Meghan Potee came out strong Saturday, eliminating 18 strokes from her first round total to finish the day in a tie for 43rd with a three-over par 73. Potee didn’t use weather as an excuse and made sure she eliminated putts on Saturday to ensure a better score.
“I just feel really good about my round today,” Potee said. “I was a little frustrated after yesterday’s round – actually more embarrassed than anything – but I was just really happy that I played really steady today. I had 11 less putts than I did yesterday which helped a lot so I just need to keep playing steady and keep it in the fairway to give me a good chance tomorrow.”
“Meghan did a great job today,” O’Neil added. “She was hitting the ball well, she changed her putting up a little bit which helped her and I think mentally she just felt more comfortable. She had a different game plan going in and I was proud of her for not letting yesterday’s round get in her head.”
Sophomore Thanuttra Boonraksasat recovered from her first round as well, eliminating eight strokes and carding a five-over 75 to put her in a tie for 19th place. Senior Katy Nugent currently sits in a tie for 47th place after posting a nine-over 79, nine strokes better than Friday’s score of 88.
“Yesterday was a tough day for everybody. That kind of wind was going to make bad shots look even worse and make good shots look bad so you just have to go with it and that was our goal. We had to focus on the fact that we had two more rounds ahead of us and we improved a lot today so hopefully we can keep that momentum going tomorrow.”
Freshman Gabby DiMarco finished the second round strong, making a birdie the last three holes and carding a 10-over 80. DiMarco currently sits in 49th place going into Sunday’s final round. Junior Audrey Yowell fell to a tie for 39th place with a two-day total of 162 (78-84) to round out the Jayhawk lineup.
“We just want to take it one shot at a time and roll with any bad luck we might get because it’s going to happen,” O’Neil said. “We’re going to have some putts that don’t go in and some shots that may not go our way so we need to stay in the present because you can get in a lot of trouble when you start looking ahead or behind.”
Oklahoma currently sits in the lead, just five strokes ahead of Iowa State and seven strokes ahead of third place Baylor. Chirapat Jao-Javanil of Oklahoma is leading all individuals after the second round with a two-day total of 145 (75-70) but Hayley Davis of Baylor is right behind her with a 147 (75-72).
The Jayhawks will look to climb the leaderboard on Sunday in the final round of the Big 12 Championship. With bad weather expecting to hit Lawrence, groups will tee off of the first tee in twosomes beginning at 8 a.m. and off of the 10th tee beginning at 8:16 a.m. Live scores will be available on golfstat.com.
