The countdown to the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Rolling Green
Golf Club is at 170 days on this brutally cold February Friday, which is all
the more reason to keep an eye on the college women’s golf scene, since many of
the top collegiate players will be headed for Springfield this summer.
The team I have followed most closely since I started this blog
is Purdue because Aurora Kan, a three-time Daily
Times Player of the Year at Chichester, starred there for four years. The spring
portion of the season always started for the Boilermakers with them playing
host to the Lady Puerto Rico Classic and that will be the case this season as
well.
While we’re shivering with sub-zero wind chills Sunday, five
of Golfweek’s top 20 teams in the
country, including No. 20 Purdue, will tee off on the first day of the 54-hole
Lady Puerto Rico Classic at the Rio Mar Country Club in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico
as the college scene awakens after three-plus months in hibernation.
Leading the 16-team field are No. 4 Georgia and No. 5
Northwestern. Kent St. and Arkansas, ranked seventh and eighth, respectively,
are also in the field.
The rankings can be a little misleading, though, and nobody
knows that better than Purdue. The Boilermakers were never able to crack the
top 30 in the national rankings last season, but reached the final day of
stroke play at the NCAA Tournament before coming up short of a spot among the
eight teams that advanced to match play.
Four of Kan’s teammates on that team had solid fall
campaigns for the Boilermakers. Swede Anna Appert Lund inherited Kan’s role as
the senior leader for Devon Brouse’s team. Purdue is still relatively young,
though. The other three top returnees are junior August Kim of St. Augustine,
Fla., sophomore Linn Andersson, like Appert Lund a Swede, and sophomore Marta
Martin of Spain. Kim and Martin are probably the most talented of the Boilers,
but the Swedes are both capable players who are battle-tested.
Appert Lund’s tie for 10th at the Landfall
Tradition that concluded the fall campaign for the Boilers, was the 15th
top-10 finish of her career. Ida Ayu Indira Meluti Putri, a freshman from Bali,
rounded out the five-women lineup at the Landfall. We’ll see beginning Sunday
if there are any significant changes in the lineup.
Georgia got a little bit of a headstart on some of the teams
in the field at its Lady Bulldog Individual Championship last weekend. Freshman
Rinka Mitsunaga of Roswell, Ga. captured the title in the one-day 36-hole event.
The Bulldogs are also led by junior Harang Lee of Spain and freshman Bailey
Tardy of Peachtree Corners, Ga.
Northwestern is led by sophomore Hannah Kim, the reigning
Big Ten Player of the Year from Chula Vista, Calif. Kim finished second
individually in the Lady Puerto Rico Classic a year ago, leading the Wildcats
to a fourth-place finish.
Also in the field are Texas Tech, ranked 26th by Golfweek, and No. 30 North Carolina St.
As I mentioned in my last post, my Twitter handle has changed.
I’ll throw a tweet on @Tmacgolf16 to alert you when I create a new post to the blog.
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