By Nathan Keil | Sports Editor
Baylor women’s golf won’t have far to travel for its NCAA Tournament opening round.
The Lady Bears earned the No. 9 seed and will stay in the Lone Star State, playing at the University of Texas Golf Club in Austin. This marks the sixth time in seven seasons under head coach Jay Goble that the Lady Bears have made the NCAA Tournament.
Goble said that is a great opportunity to be able to stay close to home and that he hopes his team will continue the success it has had at this golf club.
“We are very excited to get to play on a course that is familiar to us,” Goble said. “During my seven years here we’ve played at least five or six tournaments there and have been successful. We are coming off a strong performance at Big 12 Championship, and I think this team is ready for the challenge. We are playing our best golf right now and can’t wait to get to Austin.”
The tournament will run May 7-9 with each team playing three rounds or 54 holes. The top six teams will then advance to the 2018 NCAA Championship at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla.
Baylor is one of four Big 12 teams in the Austin regional as No. 2 Texas, No. 6 Oklahoma and No. 13 Texas Tech join the Lady Bears in the field.
The top five seeds in the regional are No. 1 Arkansas, Texas, No. 3 Michigan State, No. 4 Florida and No. 5 Auburn. Houston, Miami and Texas A&M round out the top ten with BYU, East Carolina, Virginia Tech, the University of Texas-San Antonio, Georgetown, Houston Baptist and Missouri State rounding out the field.
The Lady Bears are led by senior Amy Lee, freshmen Diane Ballieux and Gurleen Kaur and sophomore Fiona Liddell, all of whom average just under 75 strokes per round. Ballieux has four Top 25 finishes and one Top Ten finish. Kaur also has one Top Ten finish while junior Maria Vesga leads the team with two this season.
Golfstat.com will have live scoring throughout each round of the Austin regional.
