The No. 17 ranked women’s golf team opened up their spring season against some of the best Division III competition in the country and earned a seventh place finish at the Jekyll Island Collegiate.
“The field for this tournament included some of the top teams in the country and even the defending national championship team, Rhodes,” sophomore Rachele Miller said. “We thought that it was the perfect opportunity to prove that DePauw deserved a place on the national stage.”
Miller led the team in the opening round of play with a score of 79, which was good for a tie for 18th place. Overall, the team ended round one in ninth place with a score of 323.
Sophomore Larisa Luloff recorded the second best score out of all the Tigers with an 80. As a team, they led the field in par three scoring and were tied for second with number of pars. Sophomore Danielle Smith was anxious to get back on the links and was happy to get the season going.
“It felt amazing to be back on the course,” Smith said. “We had been qualifying the last couple weekends, so we were outside, but it was nice to be playing outside and not freezing. Georgia wasn't extremely warm the first day, but by Saturday and Sunday we were in a skirt and tank top.”
The team improved their score in the second round and shot a 317 to give them a total score of 640. New York University took the lead after the second round with a score of 216.
Luloff shot the best score of the afternoon with a 74 and was tied for fifth-best overall at 154. First-year Anna Foley shot an 80 and finished the day tied for 38th overall.
On the last day of the tournament, DePauw shot a 324 for a three-round total of 964. This gave the team a seventh-place finish.
Luloff ended the tournament tied for sixth with a three-round total of 233 and Smith finished tied for 35th with a 242. Foley and Miller each shot 83s in the last round and finished with 245 and 246, respectively. Luloff and Smith shot the best scores in the last day with 79s.
Overall, Smith came out of the tournament upset with the quality of performance by the team.
“I was disappointed in our seventh place finish because we lost to teams that we shouldn't have,” Smith said. “None of us were on our top game, which is evident by us losing by only a couple shots. “
Miller believes the team could improve on settling down after making mistakes and not let things spiral out of control.
“As a team I think that we need to continue to work on resetting mid-round,” Miller said. “Golf is different than any other sport in that it takes place over a four to five-hour time frame, instead of a quick one-hour match.”
The women hit the links next on Saturday at the Perry Park Spring Fling in Perry Park, Kentucky.