Auburn, out of the Southeastern Conference, played the role
of giant-killer when the Tigers stunned Texas, which had earned the top seed in
qualifying, in the quarterfinals in the NCAA Championship last spring at The
Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark.
So, it shouldn’t have been too surprising to see Auburn, No.
33 in the latest Golfstat rankings, holding a six-shot advantage over
the largest collection of college golf talent since The Blessings with most of
the suspended opening round of the
Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge complete Sunday at the Palos Verdes Golf
Club in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.
Led by Kaleigh Telfer, a junior from South Africa who fired
a spectacular 5-under 66 over the 6,017-yard, par-71 Palos Verdes layout and
holds a one-shot lead in the individual chase, Auburn posted a solid 1-under
283 total.
The Northrop Grumman, hosted by Big Ten champion Ohio State,
has become one of the top women’s college golf events each year. For many of
the teams, it marks the first stop in the spring portion of the wraparound
2019-2020 season. When the spring sprint concludes with the NCAA Championship
at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. in May, many of these teams will be
there.
Kent State, coming off an impressive victory in last week’s
UCF Challenge in Orlando, Fla. that boosted it to No. 2 in the rankings,
completed a 5-over 289 to stand alone in second place. The Flashes are under
the direction of first-year coach Lisa Strom, the 1994 PIAA champion as a
senior at Lansdale Catholic.
Two of the three teams tied for third place at 6-over still
have some work to do and will return to the golf course Monday morning to
complete their rounds. Reigning national champion Duke, ranked 12th,
and No. 15 Oregon out of the Pac-12 were at 6-over when play was suspended.
No. 1 Texas, the reigning Big 12 champion, completed a
6-over 290 to join the group tied for third place.
Duke’s Atlantic Coast Conference rival Wake Forest, which
fell to the Blue Devils in the Final Match last spring at The Blessings, was
alone in sixth place at 7-over. The No. 3 Demon Deacons still have to complete
their round.
A couple of Pac-12 powers, No. 4 Arizona State, which
captured the most recent of its eight national championships in 2017 at Rich
Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill., and No. 19 UCLA are tied for seventh place
in the loaded 16-team field, each posting a 9-over 293.
Telfer finished with six birdies against a lone bogey on her
scorecard in helping Auburn get the jump on the field. Backing her up was
Brooke Sansom, a redshirt sophomore from Pike Road, Ala. who joined a group of
four players tied for fifth place with a 1-under 70.
Mychael O’Berry, a junior from Hoover, Ala., carded a 1-over
73 to finish among the group tied for 19th place. It was Sansom and
O’Berry who pulled out hard-fought matches in the most pressurized of
situations that helped the Tigers reach the NCAA semifinals last spring at The
Blessings.
Kayley Marschke, a senior from Suwanee, Ga., had the final
counter for Auburn with a 3-over 74 that left her among the group tied for 29th
place.
Rounding out the Auburn lineup was Meghan Schofill, a
freshman from Monticiello, Fla. who reached the round of 16 in last summer’s
U.S. Women’s Amateur at the Old Waverly Golf Club in West Point, Miss. Schofill
posted a 5-over 76 to land among the group tied for 49th place.
There’s no guarantee that Telfer’s 5-under total will hold
up for the first-round lead. Wake Forest’s Emilia Migliaccio, a junior from
Cary, N.C. and No. 6 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), still
has a chance to catch Telfer as Migliaccio was at 4-under through 14 holes when
play was suspended.
If Migliaccio maintains her lofty Women’s WAGR ranking, she
will be an automatic selection to the team that will represent the United
States in the Curtis Cup Match in June at Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire,
Wales. Migliaccio represented the US of A in last summer’s Pan American Games
in Lima, Peru and struck gold in both the women’s individual and mixed team
competitions.
Southern California’s Amelia Garvey, a junior from New
Zealand and No. 44 in the Women’s WAGR and Oregon’s Tze-Han (Heather) Lin, a
sophomore from Taiwan, are tied for third place at 2-under. Garvey completed a
2-under 69 while Lin has two holes to play.
Among the players joining Auburn’s Sansom in the group tied
for fifth place at 1-under was Arizona State’s Olivia Mehaffey, a senior from
Northern Ireland and No. 17 in the Women’s WAGR. Mehaffey played on the Sun
Devils’ 2017 national championship team and has twice been selected for the
Great Britain & Ireland side in the Curtis Cup Match. She completed a round
of 70.
Rounding out the quartet at 1-under were UCLA’s Emma Spitz,
a freshman from Austria and No. 27 in the Women’s WAGR, and Kent State’s Kory
Nielsen, a junior home girl from Kent, Ohio, both of whom completed rounds of
70.
Of the seven players tied for ninth place at even-par, just
two, Duke’s Gina Kim, a sophomore from Chapel Hill, N.C. and No. 26 in the
Women’s WAGR, and Oregon’s Sofie Kibsgaard Nielsen, a freshman from Denmark,
still have to complete their rounds. Both have two holes to play.
Gina Kim had herself quite a spring a year ago, helping the
Blue Devils win a national title and then earning low-amateur honors by
finishing tied for 12th place in the U.S. Women’s Open at the
Country Club of Charleston.
Among the five players who completed an even-par 72 were
Arizona State’s Linn Grant, a freshman from Sweden and No. 12 in the Women’s
WAGR, and Vanderbilt’s Auston Kim, a sophomore from St. Augustine, Fla. and No.
19 in the Women’s WAGR.
Both Kims, Gina and Auston, along with Migliaccio were among
the dozen players invited to a practice session for candidates for the U.S.
Curtis Cup team at Loblolly in Hobe Sound, Fla. in December.
Also signing for even-par 72s were Texas’ senior leader
Emilee Hoffman of Folsom, Calif., Pepperdine’s Momoka Kobori, a senior from New
Zealand, and Duke’s Megan Furtney, a freshman from St. Charles Ill. who joined
up with Duke teammate Erica Shepherd to capture the U.S. Women’s Amateur
Four-Ball Championship last spring at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville,
Fla.
It is going to be a fascinating next two days in Palos
Verdes Estates with so much talent, individual and team, trying to jump-start
the spring sprint to Grayhawk.
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