BATON ROUGE – The NCAA on Wednesday announced its field for the six Women’s Golf Regionals and the LSU Tigers are a No. 1 regional seed for the third time in the last four years.
The Tigers will play in the Bryan, Texas regional at The Traditions Club, May 6-8. The top five teams from each of the six regionals will advance to the NCAA Championship tournament which begins March 17 in a new location, Carlsbad, California at the Omni LaCosta Resort and Spa.
The Tigers, currently ranked No. 5 in the Scoreboard by Clippd national college performance rankings and No. 5 in the Mizuno/WGCA coaches’ poll, qualifies for NCAA regional play for the 24th time in the 27 years of the event dating back to the first year of regionals which dates back to 1993 when LSU hosted the East Regional at Santa Maria Golf Course in Baton Rouge.
LSU has qualified for the NCAA Championships 14 times out of the regional formal. If LSU gets through the Regionals for the fourth straight year to advance to the championships, it will tie the longest streak for the Tigers in program history (1998-2001).
“I’ve been very proud of this team,” Coach Garrett Runion said in his interview on The Golf Channel after the selection was announced. “Each team is a little different, but this one’s been together for a while and been the number one seed three of the last four regionals. We’re one of five team to have made the Top 15 cut at the national championship each of the last three years. This team is very focused on trying to be there at the end. At the beginning of the year, we went over a lot of our goals and one of them was to not leave anything unturned and do everything we can. We hope that we’re around it at the end and give ourselves the best chance.”
The Tigers have two wins this season at the Illini Women’s Invitational at Medinah Country Club and successfully defended their title at the Moon Golf Invitational in Florida. LSU enters the tournament off a semifinal showing in the Southeastern Conference Championships in Florida, making it through to at least the semifinals for the fourth straight years.
LSU as a team is averaging 284.74, with five individual titles (three by World No. 1 Ingrid Lindblad and one each by Latanna Stone and Edit Hertzman. LSU’s stroke average is just under two strokes better than the school record of 286.65 set a season ago.
The Tigers will be joined by host Texas A&M as the number two seed in the event, following by Clemson at three and Vanderbilt from the SEC is the four seed. The five seed is the American champion, SMU, followed by Ohio State, Maryland and Iowa State.
The ninth seed is Sun Belt champion Texas State, followed by Conference USA automatic qualifier Sam Houston. Sacred Heart, representing the Northeast Conference is the 11 seed and Ohio Valley Conference champion Little Rock is the No. 12 seed.
The NCAA regional tournament is strictly a stroke play event with 18 holes scheduled each day to determine the top five teams that go to nationals. The top individual who does not qualify with the teams will also advance to compete for the individual championship.
“I think if you ask any coach they’d have one or two regional sites they’d prefer to go to and one or two that they wouldn’t. This (Bryan Regional) is certainly one we’d prefer to go to. Same time zone, similar weather and grass and a course we’re familiar with. We’ve seen the course and it’s not too far from us. You still have to play good no matter where you go, but it’s certainly one that we’re happy to go to.”
The Traditions Club was designed by Jack Nicklaus and Jack Nicklaus II and was the site of the 2011 NCAA Championships where LSU posted one of its two third place finishes and then freshman Austin Ernst own the individual championship.